ExCo: Over 500 tuition facilities to be supervised under new law

More than 500 extracurricular tuition facilities will be placed under the supervision of a future law which is currently on its way to the parliament, André Cheong, spokesperson of the Executive Council (ExCo), announced yesterday at a press conference.
The ExCo has just concluded its reading of the bill.
It was revealed by Kong Chi Meng, deputy director of the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau (DSEDJ), yesterday that the city has over 400 tuition centers and around 100 private daycare centers.
All of these facilities will be under the supervision of the new law once it is passed, and should operate in legally approved settings. Many such facilities are operating in residential buildings, which will not be acceptable in future.
However, the bill proposes a two-year transitional period that will allow these facilities to relocate to permitted venues. The suitability of venues will be determined jointly by the Fire Services Bureau, the Health Bureau, the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau, as well as the DSEDJ.
Kong explained that this is to ensure the safety of service recipients.
Facilities with fewer than four service recipients will be exempt from this requirement, although the DSEDJ will still have supervision over them. The exemption was proposed in consideration of, for example, family provisions.
A review process is also proposed in the bill so that the government can pre-screen workers in tuition facilities. If an individual has been found guilty of certain crimes, they will be banned from working in tuition facilities.
It was also proposed that the educational background of tutors be regulated. Kong said that, under the proposed bill, tutors’ education level must be higher than their service recipients.
The government proposes a one-stop licensing procedure, meaning that operators will not need to submit applications to different bureaus for a single establishment.

MOP106b of
public expenditure
The city’s public expenditure will amount to nearly MOP106 billion this year after the budget adjustment announced yesterday at the ExCo press conference.
Despite the adjustment’s announcement, the budget must still go through the parliament for legislation before it can be enacted. The adjustment concerns extra expenditure of MOP2.3 billion, which will be used for the eight previously announced financial support measures for small and medium sized enterprises.
Including this addition, the anticipated amount used from the financial reserves this year will be MOP38 billion.
In mid-April this year, the government budgeted MOP9.11 billion of the financial reserves to support the extra expenditure at the time.