This is some writing I did yesterday to explain to a vendor about the state of IT Expenditure for Hong Kong schools:

It is really difficult
to explain how the HK Government does things in schools in anything less than a
volume of Encyclopedia Britannica!

Suffice to say that
they have a section called the IT in Education section that does things like run
workshops for teachers, builds websites for sharing resources, evaluates some
products etc.

In theory, the schools
are free to make their own decisions as to where they spend dollars, including
IT dollars. In practice, the schools are under funded and do not have the spare
cash floating around to buy anything. The local schools here are very large
institutions with huge class sizes and lots of desks in rows and very
traditional teaching. It is a fiercely competitive system with only around 5%
gaining the A pass necessary to gain Uni admission here in Hong Kong. This has resulted in winners and losers with
the top kids in Hong Kong pushing the region to
No 2 in the world in straight pencil and paper measures of maths and science
ability.

Like most governments,
the HKSAR government know that they have to do something about the other 95% if
the place is to remain competitive. They see IT as a good leverage for doing
this. In 1998 they started a plan to give IT funding to schools to be spent on
ensuring that computers and networks were in schools. After a review in 2003,
they found that the equipment was not being well used so they commenced phase 2
of the IT in Education scheme which set up resource sharing networks, teacher
training schemes, special projects under “Quality Education Funding”
etc.

The government is
fairly happy with the progress so far. In the new academic year commencing late
August, they are planning to release the third phase of the IT in Ed Scheme.
Noone really knows what it will say and how it will be funded. Lots of vendors,
myself included, are doing a lot for the government in the hope that money will
be directed towards the products and services that we represent. Who know what
might happen? Given the usual hand-off approach the government has adopted
towards schools, it is likely that they will just give some more money to
schools and tell theme to spend it wisely. My hope might be that they say that
they have evaluated a solution using Electa, Literacy Circle and IWBs supplied by me and
hat they think this is an excellent solution to spend money
on.

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