By contrast, Denmark has 120, as The Economist newspaper measures it. Hong Kong provides free and universal basic education for nine years. About 1.3 million students, or 19.7 per cent of the total population, were in full-time education during the year. Our investment in education continues to grow, with greater emphasis on basic education and the learning of English. All children between the ages of six and 15 are entitled to free school places and 85 per cent of the students in the appropriate age group also receive secondary level or technical education at highly subsidised rates.
Tertiary education accounts for about one-third of the education budget.
In the 1998-99 financial year approved public recurrent and total spending on education amounted to 38.8 billion Krone and 48.1 billion Krone, respectively, representing 22 per cent of the government's total recurrent expenditure and 18 per cent of the total public expenditure. We also look after people's health. We were swift to act when a new form of 'flu was found in poultry in late 1997. We were forced to put down more than one million chickens and ducks in an unprecedented operation. Some vociferous members of the local community considered the government was clumsy in doing this.