Students from Baptist University and the University of Science & Technology will join two other universities to boycott classes next week after a meeting with Financial Secretary Henry Tang failed to bear fruit Thursday night.

The dates will be fixed in due course.

Polytechnic University students had already declared that they would strike on Tuesday, while those from the City University targeted Wednesday.

Emerging from the meeting that took more than two hours, Hong Kong Federation of Students spokesman Alvin Cheng complained that Tang did not give them any detailed figures regarding university fund grants, especially for 2004-05.

"All we want is the establishment of a university fund grant mechanism that involves the government, university management, staff and students in the future," he said.

But the financial secretary described the atmosphere as "rational and positive".

Speaking to the media, Tang said he had explained to the 20-strong student representatives the funding arrangements for 2004-05 and for 2004-08 as a whole.

As the students put forward a number of technical problems, he had asked them to send written submissions to the Education & Manpower Bureau.

But he admitted the government is facing great difficulty with limited resources available. "Even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice," the financial secretary said.

Apart from education, the government must consider investing in medical, social welfare and infrastructural sectors, he said.

"We have to cut expenditure by 11 percent over the next five years. We have to work hard together to achieve the target."

The students said they were very disappointed that Secretary for Education & Manpower Arthur Li was not present at the meeting.

They therefore requested Tang to fix a meeting with Li in a few days' time, in the hope that both of them would be present to discuss the issue.

Lingnan University President Edward Chen said any education fund cut should be shared by the primary, secondary and tertiary institutions.

Tsang Yok-sing, chairman of Democratic Alliance for Betterment of Hong Kong, said his party was opposed to any cut in education funds.

Investment in education has increased in the past few years. Yet the proportion of education expenditure to gross domestic product is lower than economies comparable to Hong Kong's size, Tsang said.

Education spending takes up almost a quarter of total expenditure of the territory and has risen steadily.

It hit HK$49.3 billion in fiscal year 2003/04, against HK$36.7 billion in 1997/98.

(China Daily HK Edition November 14, 2003)