Hong Kong Education City Limited

Annual Report
September 2011 to August 2012

Prepared byHong Kong Education City Limited
28 December 20121

Table of Contents
1.

ABOUT HONG KONG EDUCATION CITY LIMITED ....................................................... 3

2.

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN ............................................................................... 4

3.

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ........................................................... 64.

KEY INITIATIVES AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2011/12 .................................................... 8
4.1 ENHANCING AND CONSOLIDATING THE TEACHING AND LEARNING RESOURCES ........................ 8
4.2 EXPANDING STAKEHOLDERS’ SUPPORTS AND ENGAGEMENT ................................................ 10
4.3 INFRASTRUCTURE AND SERVICES TO FACILITATE ELEARNING AND THE ELEARNING MARKET ... 14
4.4 CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS AND PROMOTION ............................................................... 16

5.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE ...................................................................................... 17
5.1 GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE ............................................................................................... 17
5.2 POLICY FORMULATION ...................................................................................................... 17
5.3 HUMAN RESOURCES ........................................................................................................ 17
5.4 FINANCIAL STATUS ........................................................................................................... 19

APPENDIX 1 - NON-SUBVENTED PROJECT: READING AMBASSADOR AND READINGCONTRACT PROJECT........................................................................................................... 21
APPENDIX 2 - LIST OF MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, COMMITTEES, AUDITORS AND
COMPANY SECRETARY (AS OF 31 AUGUST 2012) ........................................................... 22
APPENDIX 3 - ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE ..................................................................... 23
APPENDIX 4 - AUDIT REPORT 2011/12 (EXTRACT) .......................................................... 24
APPENDIX 5 - PERFORMANCE PLEDGE ............................................................................ 31

2

1.

ABOUT HONG KONG EDUCATION CITY LIMITEDThe Hong Kong Education City Limited (“HKECL”) emanated from a Quality
Education Fund project to a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Government of theHong Kong Special Administrative Region (“HKSAR”) in the form of an incorporated
company, with the vision of enabling teachers to better adapt to the changing
curriculum initiatives through technology.

The HKECL portal has been the largest

professional education portal and community in Hong Kong.

This operation

receives an annual subvention of around HK$30 million to finance subvented
activities set forth to fulfill its mission. As outlined in the Service Agreement (startingfrom 1 September 2011) with the Education Bureau (“EDB”), HKECL’s strategic
focuses are as follows:A.

To facilitate building up of communities among education stakeholders
especially students, teachers and parents through online and offline services
and activities (COMMUNITY BUILDING)

B.

To provide a platform for stakeholders to disseminate education-related
information or activities (INFORMATION)C.

To serve as a one-stop shop for learning resources and teaching support
materials, both free and fee-charging (RESOURCES)D.

To provide online tools/services to education stakeholders (SERVICES)The following report outlines the progress made over the 2011/12 school year.

3

2.

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN

2011/12 was an exciting year in the education sector of Hong Kong. The first Hong
Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination was successfully conducted,
the new university 4-year curriculum was smoothly launched, and the firste-Textbook Market Development Scheme (EMADS) was introduced with great
enthusiasm from the community. In our twelfth year of establishment, HKEdCity
continued our mission in providing online educational resources, facilitating
information exchange, building up an online teacher community, delivering an
engaging and rich learning experience for students, and empowering parents to
help their children to achieve balanced and whole person development.
The Web culture, ubiquitous computing and online social networking in Hong Kong
have significant impacts on learning and teaching. Given our experience insupporting eLearning in Hong Kong for more than a decade, HKEdCity is now well
positioned to further promote the eLearning paradigm to support students’ learningin Hong Kong. In March 2012, HKEdCity introduced the EdMall, the first online
education mall in Hong Kong with an aim to encourage and facilitate developers to
introduce their educational products to schools, parents and students. HKEdCity is
now exploring the international market to introduce quality educational resources toHong Kong, and will collaborate with local and international partners to provide
more tools and resources suitable for our students, teachers and parents.
HKEdCity continued its unique role in providing a leading platform and network
services to facilitate eLearning. For example, the service of EdConnect wasdeveloped to facilitate publishers and online content providers to connect to the
800,000 student and 50,000 teacher users. The EdConnect service will be
introduced soon corresponding to the e-Textbook deployment schedule.
HKEdCity, in collaboration with the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment
Authority, introduced the Online Question Bank (OQB) in 2009. By September 2012,
the OQB was used by more than 120 schools in Hong Kong. The OQB is an
excellent example of using technology to provide timely and useful feedback tostudents in order to identity their strengths and weaknesses, and for teachers tohave useful statistical reports regarding the performance of their students.
Performance statistics are not limited to schools but are used to compare withterritory-wide performance of students. Riding on the success of OQB, HKEdCity
will develop more platforms that integrate assessment with learning resources tofacilitate assessment for learning.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the hundreds of schools and 100+4

partner organizations that have rendered valuable supports to the various initiativesof HKEdCity. Particular note of thanks should also be given to the HKEdCity Board
Members, for putting in so much time and efforts in guiding and supporting thedevelopment of HKEdCity. I am also grateful to a great team of committed andenergetic staff in HKEdCity who help to achieve the mission of HKEdCity. I am sure
HKEdCity will continue to be responsive to the needs of our students, teachers andparents, and will endeavor to lead and facilitate the eLearning development in Hong
Kong.

Roland Chin
Chairman, Board of Directors

5

3.

MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

I am very pleased and honored to take up the position as Executive Director of Hong
Kong Education City Limited in August 2012. Hong Kong has developed
comprehensive policies and strategies in Information Technology in Education since1998. With the maturity of internet technology and mobile computing, and thereadiness of the education sector and the community, I am sure information
technology can bring unprecedented benefits to enhance the quality of education in
the near future, and HKECL can play an even more active role in driving andsupporting eLearning in Hong Kong.
2012 has been a challenging year for HKECL as well. HKECL has been active insupporting the e-Textbook scheme and the 2012 HKDSE result release. The key
initiatives in 2011/2012 are highlighted below:


Facilitating eLearning and the eLearning Market – EdMall was beta launchedon 22 March 2012 and as of 31 August 2012, 31 vendors had been engaged
and 415 products were on shelf. EdMall will facilitate schools, teachers andparents to acquire the necessary eLearning resources, including both free andchargeable products.

Online Question Bank (“OQB”) – Since the introduction of OQB in 2009, which
covered only multiple choice questions for Mathematics, OQB has now been
extended to cover seven subjects and different question types. This year, OQB
was adopted by about 25% of secondary schools in Hong Kong and generated
about one million in revenue which was a 25% growth over last year.

Supporting HKDSE Result Release - in collaboration with a number of otherorganizations, HKECL developed a unique one stop information site of“Multiple Pathways” to provide consolidated information to HKDSE students
covering various opportunities for further studies in Hong Kong as well as
programmes offered by Mainland China and Taiwan universities. HKDSE
related employment information was also provided. A webcast platform with aseries of further studies and career talks hosted by renowned professionals
were conducted and received good responses with over 60,476 accumulated
page views.

Consolidating learning and teaching resources – HKECL continuously
reviewed the learning and teaching resource repository. One key initiative in
2011/2012 was to focus more on curriculum based learning resources bycollaborating with the EDB in introducing the One-stop Portal for Learning &Teaching Resources (教育局一站式學與教資源平台) where the resources are
more systematically organized according to subjects and key learning stages.

The Small Campus continued to be a very popular learning site for primary students
6which eLearning packages attracted more than 105,000 students in 2011/2012. The
new projects of “10 minutes Science”, “EdV Awards”, and “Students Explorer” allattracted encouraging number of participants.
The Key Performance Indicators for 2011/2012 were mostly met. HKECL will put
more emphasis on developing functions and services that can engage users deeper(i.e. requires login), and will transform from a resource portal to a more interactive
service portal in the future.

Victor Cheng
Executive Director

7

4.

KEY INITIATIVES AND ACHIEVEMENTS IN 2011/12

The key initiatives of HKECL in 2011/2012 were in 4 main areas: 1) Enhancing andconsolidating the learning and teaching resources; 2) Expanding stakeholders’supports and engagement; 3) Infrastructure and services facilitating eLearning andthe eLearning market; 4) Corporate communications.

4.1
Enhancing and consolidating the teaching and learning resources
To enhance the learning and teachingmaterials and user experience, HKECL
supported EDB to develop a brand new EDB
One-stop Portal for Learning & Teaching
Resources (教育局一站式學與教資源平台)
which was launched in 2012. Resources ofChineseLanguage

Language

Education,

Education,

EnglishMathematics

Education, Science Education, Personal, Social and Humanities Education,
Technology Education, Physical Education, Arts Education, General Studies andLiberal Studies could be retrieved from a single platform.

By the end of August

2012, 20,665 resources were accessible through One-stop Search and amonthly average of 66,629 downloads in resources depository was recorded.
Besides, the EDB Assessment Task Reference bank (教育局評估參考站) was
also maintained and carried over 1,000 assessment items.
“SEN Channel” ( 共 融 資 料 館 ) was newly
launched to provide resources for parents,
teachers,

andothersinvolvedintheeducation for students with special needs. 9
showcases were delivered on school-based
experience of supporting students withspecial learning needs in schools, andencouraged professional exchanges among
teachers.
“TVNews” was an eLearning service which
aimed at facilitating students’ learning in
English Language via authentic news clips
and online exercises. “News Practice” offers
customized English exercises designed fromselected English news clips from TVB Pearl,8to help students enrich vocabulary and phrases, enhance listening skills, arouseinterest and develop critical thinking towards social issues.
From December 2011 to May 2012, a total of 72 online exercises (25 for juniorand 47 for senior) were provided at this platform, which attracted a total of 429
schools over the year, and engaged an average of 161 schools monthly and8,430 monthly students’ participation. One training seminar cum presentation
ceremony and 8 school-based trainings were delivered.

「十分豐富的網上平台，對教師及學生均十分有益」
啟基學校陳佩惠老師


“10 Mins Science” (「十分科學」網上學習平 台 ) was designed to promote andfacilitate

self-learning

relatedtothescience domain in the General Studies
curriculum, particularly for senior primaryschool level, this service was offeredduring

March

to

June

2011.

Rich

multimedia learning contents contributedby Children Science and assessment items developed by HKIEd were hosted in
the Learning Management System. The platform engaged over 13,500
participations from 240 primary schools at its peak and attracted 169 schools permonth on average over the year. Participating teachers gave positive feedback
regarding the design of the service and suggested HKECL to continue similar
service in the coming school year.
“我很喜歡有關太空的題目，不過，學校要到六年級才教授太空，去年做了教育城

的題目，給我機會認識一些太空知識。”
許焯僖 香港浸會大學附屬學校王錦輝中小學(小學部)“Teen Campus” was a brand new portal
targeted at secondary students. It providedrichmultimedia

content

andenquiryquestions to raise students’ awareness of
local

happenings,

socialissuesandpopular cultures. The portal also served asa navigator to allow student access other
HKECL services, such as eWorks, Multiple
Pathways, and OQB, etc.

9Partnered with Hong Kong LiberalStudies

Teachers'

Association,

supported by Microsoft and Ocean
Park, Student Explorer (探知達人) was
organized for students to compete fordifferent awards including Graduation
Certificates, Bronze, Silver and GoldenAwards, the Best ePaper Award, theMost Interesting ePaper Award and the Best Student Explorer Award. Student
Explorer allowed the participants to explore different things in society and share
their after-thoughts in the form of ePapers (探知電子報). 12 workshops, 1
graduation ceremony and 4 Student Explorer committee meetings wereorganized throughout the year. 272 students had been recruited, 150 news
articles were published. The programme attracted 688,831 page views in total
over the year.
“參加探知達人計劃後，我能夠參與各種類型的工作坊和學習寫電子報。在參與工

作坊和寫電子報的過程，不但學習到課本以外的知識，而且令我明白到體驗是一種
學習的好途徑，因為深刻的體驗都會留在自己的記憶中!”
何韻娜 宣道會鄭榮之中學
“Teacher TV” -- Teacher TV was one of
the flagship services which provided
video and support materials for those
who were working in education inPrimary and Secondary levels, including
principals, teachers, teacher trainers,
and support staff. It aimed to raise
educational

standards

andprofessional

development.

promoteItalsoprovided classroom resources, video experience across all curricula and otherschool based issues and all content was available to be viewed online for free. In
the 2011/12 school year, we uploaded 153 new video resources provided by
EDB, CEATE, QEF, and SCOLARS. From usage perspective, this service gained
a wide- reaching audience of 7,934 teacher members.

4.2


Expanding stakeholders’ supports and engagement
In 2011/12, HKECL conducted various activities with partners, for instance, comic
drawing competition, drama competition and video shooting competition toenrich students’ learning experience. These activities provided the concepts and10

practical methods about Environmental Protection and Healthy Living which
helped bring the students’ talent to full play.
“EdV Awards”, co-organized with theChief Executive’s Award for Teaching
Excellence Teacher Association andHong Kong Association for Computer
Education, received over 100 learningand teaching videos from teachers,
students

andthepublic.

Thesubmissions included demonstrations,experiments, thematic studies, and performances related to learning andteaching. The kick-off ceremony cum multi-media workshops were organized in
May for users to understand the trend of using multi-media in classroom as wellas in school. The awards are going to be presented to the participating groups in
the Learning and Teaching Expo in late November 2012 and the new service of
EdV Channel (school-based) will be introduced during the award presentation
ceremony. Entries will be uploaded to the EdV Channel to stimulate learning
atmosphere.
“eWorks”, an online writing platform thatencourages students to write and share.
Coupled with the award scheme torecognize secondary school students
with outstanding writing pieces submitted(“ 中 學 生 創 作 獎 勵 計 劃 ”), the platform
attracted 4,429 submissions, in which
3,686

submissions

were

published.

These submissions attracted another
2,215 comments, 1,347 ratings and over 1,634,000 page views. 14 local writers
and 7 academic professionals were invited to be the adjudicators of the award
scheme. The platform engaged 221 schools in total and attracted 648 students
each month on average over the year.
Besides, 6 local writers were engaged to share their writing experience, and 7
schools were invited to share their school-based experience on encouraging
students to submit works. A workshop on creating comic works by local
illustrator-writer MandyCat (文地) was organized on 24 March 2012, which
attracted 34 secondary school participants.

11

Supported the Diplomatic Cup Competition with about 100 primary and secondary
schools and more than 3,000 students participated. This kind of large scale
online participation is very demanding on the infrastructure. Nevertheless, thecampaign was carried out successfully and the result was well received by theorganizers and the participants.

With the move in to the new building in
2011, the HKCEL offices and facilities
are now better equipped with suitable,
fully WiFi enabled venues to facilitatecommunity

engagement

activities.

Over 10 events were organized.
Teachers
Regular engagement activities were conducted to maintain close contact withschools and members and promote our services. These included theme-based
seminars, school visits, call downs, focus-group meeting, etc. Multiple purposes
were achieved, such as introducing resources and services, testing new tools
and packages, collecting needs and feedback, exchanging new methods forteaching and learning, etc. In total, around 86 visits were carried out to introduce
HKECL’s services during schools’ professional development day and regular
visits.

To expand our services to the pre-service teacher community, two pre-service
teacher seminars and the Induction Course for New Librarian were conducted
this year with the Education Bureau. The seminars were well-received with over
300 participants.

Students

In 2011/12, HKECL maintained a pool of over 840,000 student members.
eLearning packages in Small Campus were offered to students covering
numerous key learning areas, and attracted over 105,000 participants.

12

A major challenge for S6 students in2012 was the first HKDSE Examination.
In addition to the examination itself, all
the 72,000 students needed advice andguidance regarding further studies andemployment as the HKDSE qualification
was new to Hong Kong. HKECL, in
collaboration with the Education Bureau,
Hong Kong Association of Careers Masters and Guidance Masters, Hong Kong
Family Welfare Society, and youth.gov.hk developed a unique one stop
information site of “Multiple Pathways” to provide consolidated information to
HKDSE students covering local bachelor’s degree programmes, sub-degree
programmes, vocational training programmes, Yi Jin Diploma as well as
programmes offered by Mainland China and Taiwan universities. Information on
the recognition of the HKDSE qualifications in Hong Kong and overseas was
also provided. The employment information of local market was also enriched.
A webcast platform with a series offurther studies and career talks
hosted by the renowned educators,
scholars,

counselors

andprofessionals were conducted andreceived

good

responses.

The

information

site

of

Multiple

Pathways

captured

60,476

accumulated page views.

「網上互動直播的講座題目很廣泛，多元導航的資訊清晰易明，如果家長及考生不愛閱讀，亦可改為收看短片，甚為吸引。」
Elsie Chan 星島日報
Parents

In 2011/12, with the support from RTHK

and Committee on Home-School Co-operation,
HKECL further enhanced Parent Channel (家長易學站).

43 audio clips (家家有教)

wereuploaded

to

new

the

channel.

components including 23

Other

comics (小學雞)13and 25 articles (親子札記, 親子十八式) which portrayed various phenomena of Hong
Kong youngsters and family relations were also provided. All these new contents
accumulated 151,454 page views.
“自學獎勵計劃好實用，當中的親自技巧幫我到改善子女關係!”何鳳玲 家長會員

4.3

Infrastructure and services to facilitate eLearning and the eLearningmarketHKECL was well prepared to support the rapid development of eLearning in Hong
Kong especially the introduction of mobile learning and e-textbook. Various
infrastructure and services were developed and reviewed to ensure HKCEL’s uniqueposition in promoting and facilitating the eLearning market. An e-textbook prototype
which uses platform independent industry web standards was developed as ademonstration product for the industry. Various meetings and technical discussions
were conducted with NGOs and private companies who were interested in the
EMADS.
Infrastructure

One key infrastructure strategy for HKECL was to simplify login account process
and to ensure wide adoption of the HKEdCity account in the education
community. In this connection, HKECL adopted OpenID technology so that users
can login their HKEdCity account using other popular accounts such as Google,
Facebook and Yahoo. HKECL also facilitated the student account updateprocess by providing school by school update service prior to the start of the newacademic year in August 2012. The membership system was enhanced toprovide more efficient and more comprehensive supports.

To prepare for mobile learning and the use of tablets, major systems wererevamped to support touch interface widely adopted in tablets running Android
and iOS (iPad). All new developments were made tablet friendly. In addition,
most current and new services were made to be able to support a wider
collection of popular web browsers including Internet Explorer, Chrome, FireFox
and Safari. Internal development had been geared towards supporting internet
technology such as html5. With such infrastructure change, HKECL was wellpoised to deliver new services for mobile eLearning. It is worth noting that some
old learning resources based on Flash will continue to be accessible by Windows
PC only for some time.

14

EdMall

EdMall was launched as beta version on 22 March 2012 with 15 vendors andmore than 200 products on shelf. To
ensure that all operations are plannedsmoothly,professional

operation

manuals

review
andofserviceagreements were performed before thesystemlaunched.

EdMallvendorrecruitment talks were conducted inPartner Networking reception in May
2012 to promote the EdMall businessto more than 80 potential vendors. Until August 2012, 31 vendors had been
engaged and 415 products were on shelf.
Subsequent to launching of the system, joint promotions with vendors were donewith specific themes and discount offers to attract customers. A total of 6
promotion eNews were issued from March to August 2012 to highlight products
and discounts available in EdMall. From October to December 2011, 3 seminars
were conducted to schools to introduce the benefits of EdMall to schools.

Online Question BankOQB, stepping in its third year of service,wasdedicatedtopromotingandsupporting Assessment for Learning. It
aimed

to

reinforceandstrengthen

students’ learning through assessment
and instant feedback to support them inpreparation for the HKDSE. Partnered
with

Hong

Kong

Examination

andAssessment Authority (HKEAA) since2009, OQB provided over 7000 questions from past papers of public
examinations covering seven subjects in 2011/12, including Mathematics,
Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economic, Geography and ICT. The questions werecategorized by year, topic, difficulty and relevancy to the New Senior Secondary(NSS) curriculum. With the flexible filtering tools and powerful analytical report,
students were empowered with personalized assessment and self-evaluatedlearning progress. In 2011/12, the service attracted subscription from 123
secondary schools and 78 individual students, covering more than 25% of15secondary schools in Hong Kong.


Further to being awarded with the Gold Award in “Best Lifestyle Award (Learning& Living)” in the Hong Kong ICT Awards 2011, OQB was nominated to participate
in Asia Pacific ICT Awards 2011 (APICTA) and won the merit award in “Best ofeLearning” among the 16 participating economies. Enhancement and systemrevamp of OQB platform was also done to enrich user experience and support
further cooperation with other content providers in future.

4.4
Corporate Communications and promotion
A series of marketing campaigns targeting at improving HKECL’s image wererolled out to foster brand awareness and ensure HKECL’s services are widely
communicated to the various stakeholders. To raise public awareness of HKECL
and wrap it as a regional market facilitator in education, an annual publicity plan
was developed. Over the year, 112 pieces of target press clippings wereachieved through 21 media interviews, and press releases. Shouldering
corporate social responsibility to the community has been one of HKECL’s
missions. Our continuous contribution to society was widely recognized by “WebCare Award”, “Meritorious Website Award” and “Caring Company”.



HKECL service brochures were sent to the principals,
vice-principals and curriculum development officers of all
schools(memberandnon-member).

Year-end

servicestatements and service application forms which provided themwith usage information on signature services in 2011/12 school
year were sent to member schools in June as well to invite themto enroll in the new school year.
An annual online survey was conducted to understand users’ satisfaction and
expectation on our services for inspiration on the ways of further improvement.
For the overall satisfaction with our website, the segments of teachers, students
and parents scored 7.1, 6.6 and 7.5 out of 10 respectively.

16

5.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

Operated largely with the support of government funds, HKECL’s subvention has
been renewed for a period of six years effective on 1 September 2011. HKECL aims tomaintain the company operation with accountability and transparency complying withstatutory requirements and upholding best practices. In 2011/12, the organization
structure was refined and a few policies and guidelines were reviewed or newly
established in order to enhance the operation efficiency and support new businessdevelopment needs.

5.1

Governance Structure1

The presently ten-member Board of Directors, appointed by shareholders to serve intheir personal/ official capacity, is the highest body which manages the business andstrategic development of the Company and ensures its operation in compliance withthe statutory requirements, especially those stipulated in the Memorandum andArticles of Association. Under the Board, the Executive Committee is chaired by an
official director to monitor and give advice on the company’s operational mattersregularly. During the period, three Board Meetings and three Executive Committee
Meetings were held respectively with high participation rates of 82.2% and 78%
respectively. A new director was appointed on 1 April 2012.

Declaration of interest

has been made by directors for the year. No director has received any remuneration
during their tenure so far.

5.2

Policy Formulation

HKECL has been taking steps to streamline the existing operation workflow andcreate systematic workflow for new business development. In 2011/12, almost 10
policies and guidelines were revised and formulated. Salary Review Policy and Policy
on Performance Incentive were revised with sound and credible salary review andincentive payment mechanisms, while the approval limit set out in the Procurement
and Payment Policy was expanded to cater for the procurement needs. The supplier
maintenance was also simplified to smoothen the operation flow. In order to support
ecommerce development, a series of policies and operation guidelines relating to
EdMall were also formulated during the year.

5.3

Human Resources

This year, HKECL placed great emphasis on redefining the divisional functions andthe responsibilities of numerous positions to improve the work efficiency and1

Refer to Appendix 2.
17

productivity as well as to cater for the new business development needs. Other HR
projects were also implemented with aims to build a credible compensation system,
facilitate staff development, and enhance staff relation and satisfaction.
5.3.1


Organization Re-structuring2

The Customer and Partner Division was renamed and repositioned as Clientsand Partners Division which composed of Learning & Teaching Department (LAT)and Schools & Partners Liaison Department (SL). The functions of LAT
emphasized on developing web services and resources for target users,
whereas SL focused on outreaching school clients to promote HKEdcity services,
as well as building relationship with schools and strategic partners. Besides, themanpower resources of the Company were reallocated by expanding theBusiness Development Division and Corporate Marketing Division to ensure asmooth launch and operation of the EdMall business and sufficient support for
centralized marketing and promotional events. The functions and size of theother two divisions namely Systems & Operation and Administration & Financeremained unchanged. During the year, the Company was steered by the Interim
Executive Director seconded by EDB and maintained an average headcount of
56 out of 60 established headcounts until the new Executive Director was on
board on 21 August 2012.

5.3.2


Staff Training and Activity

To enrich the professional skills and knowledge of the staff members, theCompany conducted various training workshops regarding writing skills, newordinances and regulations, in particulars strengthening the front line staff withpromotional and facilitation skills through a series of workshops. During the year,
approximately 122 man-days were invested on staff training and the average
training time per staff was about 2.1 man-days. To enhance the staff relations
and morale, the Company also organized various staff activities including
Christmas Party, New Year Lunch, bowling game, etc. The Company valued staff
opinions and conducted employee satisfaction survey in July 2012. Employees’
various expectation on how to improve HKECL as a better workplace reflected in
the survey will be seriously reviewed by HKECL in the following year.

2

Refer to Appendix 3
18

5.3.3


Staff Remuneration and Benefit

HKECL commissioned an independent HR Consultancy firm to review themechanisms of annual salary review and bonus payment and theirrecommendations on major principles and changes of policies were fully adopted
and approved by the Board. The Board also approved the budget for salary
increment and performance incentive for 2011/12 in accordance with Salary
Review Policy and Policy on Performance Incentive. The detailed report on staff
remuneration of 2011/12 has been endorsed by the Board for submission toGovernment.

5.4

Financial Status

The overall financial status of the Company in 2011/12 was healthy and steady.
total income and expenditure of subvented activities was HK$29 million.

The

As of 31

August 2012, the Company had a total non-current asset of HK$3.9 million andcurrent assets of HK$8.7 million.
HK$1.5 million.

The net assets of the Company amounted to

The Company’s liquidity was in very good condition throughout theyear as cash and deposits at bank amounted to HK$7.7 million by the end of thefinancial year3. The accounts of subvented and non-subvented activities were kept
separately.
5.4.1
Expenditure of Subvented Activities

Regarding the expenditure of subvented activities, the staff cost amounted to
HK$18.6 million which occupied the biggest share and accounted for 64.1% of
the total expenditure. The next highest expense was the administrative
expenses which accounted for 14.8%.

For the capital expenditure, HKECL spent HK$1.9 million for acquiring fixed
assets which included computer equipment, application license and security
systems. The expenditure was to set up office infrastructure for Shatin office andimprove the web site performance.

5.4.2


Reserve

According to the new Service Agreement, HKECL is allowed to keep a reserve at
a level capped at 25% of the subvention of the current year. Therefore, HK$4.5
million unused subvention was carried forward and kept as reserve in 2011/12.
HK$1.6 million was used for the office relocation project as approved by the3

Refer to Appendix 4.
19

Board and the reserve to be carried forward to 2012/13 is estimated to be
HK$2.7 million. In addition, HKECL maintained its retained earnings of HK$1.5
million from non-subvented activities.
5.4.3
External Audit

Wong Lam Leung & Kwok C.P.A. Limited was reappointed as the auditor for thisfiscal year in May 2012 and the reappointment was endorsed in the Annual
General Meeting. The annual stocktaking exercise for all fixed assets wascompleted on 30-31 August 2012. The annual external audit and compliance
audit for the year-ended 31 August 2012 was completed in late November.

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APPENDIX 1 - Non-subvented project: Reading Ambassador and Reading
Contract Project
Recognized by the impact brought to the community in reading promotion, HKECL wasawarded by SCOLAR a total of HK$350 thousand to carry on with the Reading Project in2011/12. Near 200 schools signed up for the reading services and were willing to promote“Read and Share” culture within their campuses. Listed below are the major services
provided in the school year 2011/12:
Trial Reading (圖書試閱)To encourage students to read online, a “trial-read” scheme was promoted at the Hong Kong
Reading City website. This scheme was supported by local publishers which provided
one-tenth excerpts of each book. Over 300 book titles were introduced throughout the year.
Students could share and comment on the titles after reading.
Ten Book Selection (十本好讀)
An annual supporting campaign for the Trial Reading scheme. Students could vote for their
10 favourite titles and authors annually through the voting campaign held at the Hong Kong
Reading City website. This year, the Scheme engaged more than 16,000 votes from over 400
schools. Many awardees cherished the honour and shared their joyful moments withstudents in video through the Hong Kong Reading City website, some awarded writers haveincluded the entitled award in their personal profiles.
Online Reading Club (ORC) (網上讀書會)An online platform was provided to schools to promote “Read and Share” culture and facilitate
self-learning among students, teachers and Reading Ambassadors. Over 150 project schools
and 44 Public Libraries established their ORC to share reading experiences with thecommunities.
Reading Contract Programme (「閱讀約章」計劃)(a) The “School Year Reading Contract” programme was launched in December 2011 andattracted over 59,000 students. They were encouraged to commit a “reading mission”, that is,
to read at least 3 books a month for at least 4 months during the school year.
(b) The “Summer Reading Contract” programme attracted over 119,000 students from 210
schools.
Reading Ambassador Programme (「閱讀大使」計劃)
Due to SCOLAR’s strategic adjustment of reading promotion projects, HKECL only maintained
online services and limited extended support to project schools. Nevertheless, near 100
schools registered to join the programme in which they recruited and trained their own readingambassadors with online video clips and operated school-based reading clubs. Training
videos covering various topics, like developing reading activities, leading discussions andstory-telling, were available on the Hong Kong Reading City website. Limited copies ofreading club handbook and lesson plan were also provided.
World Book Day (世界閱讀日)To motivate the community to support the World Book Day and to draw wider awareness ofreading, a website was set up in March and encouraged online sharing among school
principals, teachers and students. 30 writers and celebrities were invited to share theirfavourite books in the website.

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APPENDIX 2 - List of Members of the Board, Committees, Auditors and Company
Secretary (as of 31 August 2012)
Board of Directors
Auditors
Prof. Roland Chin, JP (Chairman)
Dr. Chan Ka Ki*
Dr. Elizabeth Quat
Dr. John Fung
Ms. Irene Chan
Mr. Christopher Yu
Mr. Michel Chan
Mr. Leo Kung
Dr. Lee George Lam
Mr. Win Mak

Wong Lam Leung & Kwok C.P.A. Limited
Company Secretary
WLLK Secretaries Limited

Executive Committee
Dr. Chan Ka Ki (Chairman)*
Mr. Christopher Yu
Dr. Elizabeth Quat
Mr. Victor Cheng (Executive Director)

Remark: * Official Director

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APPENDIX 3 - Organization Structure

Hong Kong Education City Ltd.
Organization Structure(31 Aug 2012)
Board of Directors

Executive Committee

Executive Director

Systems &Operation Division
System Development
System Administration
Multimedia Production
Project Management

Administration &Finance DivisionCorporate
Marketing

Human Resources & Admin. Marketing & Promotion
Corporate Affairs
Customer Service
Accounting & Finance23

Business
Development Division

Clients & Partners
Division

Business Development

Learning & Teaching
Schools & Partners Liaison
Reading Project (Non-subvented)

APPENDIX 4 - Audit Report 2011/12 (Extract)

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Appendix 5 - Performance Pledge
HKECL is committed to providing teachers and the public with high quality services. We take great concerns on user comments and satisfaction. In order toenhance our services and satisfy the needs of users, we set out the following targets.
Category
User AccountOpening/
Registration

Web Service

Service

TargetAchievement

within 1 working day

100% achieved

within 10 working days upon all therequired information and supporting
document being received
within 5 working days upon all therequired information and supporting
document being received100% achievedProcess user account application (online
application)
Review and endorsement of School Accountand Principal Personal Account application(written application)
Process Corporate account application

100% achieved

Provide accessible and stable web service








Inform user of scheduled maintenance work/
service suspension of web server

99.9% (every day and every week innormal operation)
14 calendar days in advance

99.94%All maintenances have 14
calendars days advancenoticeOne incident in October
2011 required 145
minutes to recover theserviceCustomer
Service

Resume web service in case of system
failure

within 2 hours (excluding
un-controllable external factors)

Response to telephone enquiries at the
hotlineHandle written (including emails) enquiries
Handle written complaints



within 3 working days
within 7 working days
issue acknowledgement within 3
working days and reply within 20
working daysPublication of annual report

100% achieved
100% achieved
100% achieved

4 months after the end of financial

6 months after the end ofyear
financial year** Due to change of Executive Director, the Annual Report 2010/11 was publicized later than scheduled in February 2012.

Publication







31