On 15 October 2001,
Audit Commission published a report named "Management of the Quality Education Fund". It provided some criticisms and suggestions. Initially, there were no limits on the amount of applications from an applicant. Some schools applied many times to implement many plans so it increased the workload on teachers. Although applying is voluntary, some people saw "successful applications" as an indicator of performance of schools, causing many schools to apply to catch up. During an interview,
Fanny Law, former permanent secretary of
Education and Manpower Bureau, said, "Some schools seem to stipulate that every teacher needs to write some suggestion, creating intangible pressure in the process." There were also criticisms that the fund is effectively involuntary. The education industry has also complained that the procedures were complicated and the requirements were too high. On 25 May 2018, The chairperson of the fund,
Xu Lian'an, said that the fund did not provide a form for applications and schools had to write their own plan outline, so the fund would simplify procedures by designing an application form for schools to fill in. Successful applications are uploaded to the fund's website (
Cyber Resource Centre) for others to reference. He also said that after simplifying procedures, time it takes to process applications involving amounts over 600 thousand HKD can be shortened from over six months to three months only. == Significant items ==