Education spending gets LegCo green light

Hong Kong’s legislature approved the long-expected extra funding of HK$3.6 billion on education on Wednesday, making it the first policy Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor has managed to put into action since she assumed office with a pledge to mend executive-legislature relations.

This means students and schools will receive their new subsidies at the beginning of the semester in September.

The voting was a buzzer beater after an eight-hour session of the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council — the last one before the summer recess.

Secretary for Education Kevin Yeung Yun-hung welcomed the in-time approval. He said the proposal had won wide rec- ognition among education stakeholders. The government will further build consensus and cooperation with the education sector, Yeung said.

Two of the city’s biggest education sector alliances — the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union and the Education Convergence — both backed the plan.

Lam’s funding proposal has won support from across the political spectrum in LegCo. However, the opposition camp reignited tensions with the government last week after the High Court disqualified four lawmakers who violated the legal requirements of oath-taking when they were being sworn last year.

The judicial review was sought by the previous-term government and the disqualification was made by the court but the opposition camp targeted Lam, saying she “launched a war” against the “pan-democrats”. They moved a number of motions at the session in a bid to delay voting.

A lawmaker from the city’s biggest political party — the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong — Ben Chan Hanpan expressed antipathy to the opposition camp’s move, stressing that political disagreement should never override social livelihood issues.

The CE’s education funding would benefit both local students and teachers from September.