Chief executive Carrie Lam announces new subsidies for schools to buy books in the 2018/19 academic year
Print is not dead—at least not in Hong Kong’s education system.
Last week, Hong Kong chief executive and Tatler 500 lister Carrie Lam announced that the government will spend HK$48 million (US$6.1 million) per year in subsidies for Hong Kong schools to buy books and encourage more students to read.
Under the scheme, each primary and secondary school will receive HK$40,000 and HK$70,000 respectively, starting in the 2018/19 school year.
Lam said, “Reading brings joy, triggers imagination and broadens [readers’] vision … I am a reader, I like reading books because it will enrich my knowledge, it will inspire ideas and thinking and so on.”
Besides physical books, the money can be used “to promote a reading culture among students using different sorts of activities,” said Lam.
Book clubs and reading challenges are just a few ideas to get students to start reading more. And considering that the average adult reads just one or two books a year, with research showing that the motivation to read steadily declines with age, it’s especially important to develop a love for reading at a young age.
The Hong Kong Tatler Schools Guide is hitting newsstands on May 1, 2018—pick up your copy along with the May issue of Hong Kong Tatler.