The Secretary for Education, Dr Choi Yuk-lin, today (April 25) presented certificates to awardees under the HKSAR Government Scholarship Fund (GSF) and the Self-financing Post-secondary Education Fund (SPEF) for the 2023/24 academic year at the GSF and SPEF Joint Scholarship Presentation Ceremony 2024.
Over 6 000 meritorious post-secondary students received scholarships and awards, amounting to about $180 million in total. Both the GSF and the SPEF also give recognition to meritorious post-secondary students with special educational needs (SEN) through the Endeavour Merit Award and the Endeavour Scholarship. This year, a total of around 580 SEN students were given the awards/scholarships.
Dr Choi said that the generous scholarship and award schemes not only highlight the Government's commitment to, and efforts in, nurturing talent, but also play an active role in developing Hong Kong as an international hub for post-secondary education.
The GSF was established in 2008 to attract outstanding local students to advance their studies at home, and meritorious non-local students to pursue higher education opportunities in Hong Kong. There are five types of scholarships and awards under the GSF, namely Scholarships for Outstanding Performance, Targeted Scholarship, Talent Development Scholarship, Reaching Out Award and Endeavour Merit Award. Scholarships and awards are offered to students studying full-time publicly funded sub-degree, undergraduate-level and above programmes. In the 2023/24 academic year, over 1 900 students received the scholarships/awards, including over 1 200 local students and about 700 non-local students. In terms of levels of study, about 1 300 students were at an undergraduate level and above, while about 600 students were at the sub-degree level.
In addition, the Belt and Road (B&R) Scholarship was introduced under the Targeted Scholarship Scheme to encourage students from B&R countries/regions to pursue studies in Hong Kong. In the 2023/24 academic year, 100 students from 21 B&R countries/regions have been awarded this scholarship for the first time.
The Self-financing Post-secondary Scholarship Scheme (SPSS) was established under the SPEF in 2011 to promote the quality and sustainable development of the self-financing post-secondary sector. There are five types of scholarships and awards under the scheme, namely Outstanding Performance Scholarship, Best Progress Award, Talent Development Scholarship, Reaching Out Award and Endeavour Scholarship. These scholarships and awards are offered to students pursuing full-time locally accredited self-financing sub-degree or undergraduate programmes. In the 2023/24 academic year, the SPEF offered scholarships and awards to about 3 800 local and about 300 non-local students. In terms of levels of study, about 2 300 of them pursued undergraduate studies while about 1 800 students were at the sub-degree level.
A list of participating institutions is at Annex I. A broad distribution of the scholarship recipients is set out at Annex II. Details of the scholarships and awards under the GSF are available at the Education Bureau's website (www.edb.gov.hk/en/edu-system/postsecondary/local-higher-edu/publicly-funded-programmes/scholarship.html). Those under the SPSS as well as the SPEF are available at the Committee on Self-financing Post-secondary Education's website (www.cspe.edu.hk/en/index.html).
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