ESF to seek government help for plan to replace school buildings

Liz Heron Sunday Morning Post - Dec 12, 2010
Leaders of the English Schools Foundation will tomorrow launch their first bid for extra government funding since a damning 2004 audit report by asking legislators to back plans for a new school building. ESF chief executive Heather Du Quesnay will explain to the Legislative Council's education panel why the foundation needs HK$169.3 million of government capital funding to put into the rebuilding of Kowloon Junior School - its oldest campus. The ESF plans to put in HK$220.5 million of its own money - including the proceeds of a HK$25,000 capital levy that is coming in next year - to provide enhancements to the standard government style of campus that is the norm in ESF schools. The bid is the first step in an ambitious plan that aims to replace all the ESF's 15 publicly funded schools within 50 years at an estimated cost of around HK$5 billion. Many of the schools are crumbling or outdated. Following six tumultuous years that saw stinging criticism of the ESF from the Audit Commission and the Public Affairs Committee, reform of its oversized governing foundation, cuts in teachers' pay, funding cuts, and fee increases, ESF chiefs are seeking a new deal with the Education Bureau. They want to secure government capital funds for the rebuilding plan on the grounds that parents will also pay via the levy and the ESF will contribute from its operating surplus, private donations and borrowings. Du Quesnay said the ESF board had adopted the strategy of first wooing the government into discussions of capital works with a view to later moving on to the issue of the future of the government subvention. "We are in Legco on Monday to justify the funding for Kowloon Junior and if that goes according to plan, we will be in the Public Works Subcommittee in January and the Finance Committee in February," she said. "There is a real case that has to be made for the government to see that the ESF is justified in getting increased funding. I am hopeful that we will get something done in the next year." This strategy will have to be revised after the bureau's announcement on Friday that it plans to restart talks on the subvention shortly. ESF chiefs will embark on the negotiations as they face growing unrest among parents over rising fees and charges. A key challenge will be how to contain discontent and head off damage from parents' criticisms. At a public meeting on the ESF's finances on Thursday, the chiefs faced a barrage of hostile questions from angry parents about the levy and losses of HK$21.3 million sustained in 2009-10 by the ESF's two private independent schools. Finance chief Vivian Cheung said the ESF did not cross-subsidise the private independent schools and pledged that their payments would increase to ensure the ESF's investment plus a return was repaid within a 20-year period. But many parents remained unconvinced, with one calculating that the foundation was carrying HK$50 million in depreciation costs for the private independent schools. Hans Ladegaard, spokesman for the Concerned ESF Parents Group, said it was unfair for ESF parents alone to be facing a levy, when Du Quesnay had acknowledged that the sum raised would replace the money invested in the private independents. Du Quesnay said: "We recognise that the subvention is a hugely important issue. By comparison with the subvention ESF received in 2003, the subvention per child is 25 per cent less for primary schools and 30 per cent less for secondary schools. So there has been a huge drop in the value of the subvention per child." But she warned parents to be aware that, if the ESF started discussions on the subvention, "it could go the other way", with the government cutting or even removing the public funding to the foundation.