Christian Zheng Sheng College has urged the government to make greater efforts to help the overcrowded drug rehabilitation school relocate.

The issue of the school's relocation has been lingering for a year, but plans for a move came to a sudden halt after the overseeing body at the school became the focus of a corruption investigation last August.

The school declared Sunday that the Independent Commission Against Corruption had cleared the school's sponsoring agency, the Christian Zheng Sheng Association, of any suspicion of malpractice or corrupt activities.

Speaking during a radio show Monday, school supervisor Jacob Lam Hay-sing questioned the government's requirement for further information on operational plans and operating accounts.

As a licensed private school cum drug rehabilitation service center, Christian Zheng Sheng College has filed all this information, he said. The only exception has been the delay of 2008 and 2009 account reports, stemming from the organization's decision to split the accounts of the Christian Zheng Sheng College and the Christian Zheng Sheng Association.

Since the school was established in 1985 to help reform young drug offenders - without government funding - the school administration is now more than happy to talk to government officials to provide more information, Lam said. However, throughout the whole saga of the school's application to relocate and the ICAC probe, the government never requested a meeting, he said.

The school, located in small and aged quarters on Chi Ma Wan Peninsula, Lantau Island, wants to reactivate its plan to move to Mui Wo.

In response, a government spokesman Monday said while the government supports the relocation plan in principle, more information is needed before the next step can be taken.

Appearing on a separate radio show Monday, Christian Zheng Sheng College principal Alman Chan Siu-cheuk also said the government has been too vague in its request for better accountability. "There's room for better governance and transparency for any organization," he said.

But the need for the school's relocation is pressing. Not only is the school overcrowded but also the buildings are unstable owing to severe soil erosion of the slope where they are situated. Christian Zheng Sheng also needs space because the New Senior Secondary Academic Structure will extend secondary schools by one year. Without expansion, some Secondary Five students would have nowhere to go, Chan said.

Daniel Shek Tan-lei, Chairman of the Action Committee Against Narcotics, said on the radio show that Hong Kong needs more drug rehabilitation schools to tackle increasingly prevalent drug abuse among teenagers.

Schools with residential accommodation capable of nurturing social development would provide a new environment conducive to ending the habit, Shek explained.

The school differs from normal drug rehabilitation centers because teenagers identify themselves as students, rather than as substance abusers, and their early return to society is most helpful, he added.

Despite his wish for a timely solution, Shek said he didn't expect the relocation to happen before the upcoming academic year starts in September.

The opposition of the Mui Wo residents still hasn't been completely resolved, he said.

On a more positive note, Chan said that the relations between the school and Mui Wo residents have improved.

"The Mui Wo parents are really concerned with their children's educational needs. But they have now come to see the needs of Christian Zheng Sheng students and realize these are two separate issues," he said.

The school submitted an application to the government in 2007 to move to the vacated premises of the New Territories Heung Yee Kuk Southern District Secondary School site in Mui Wo. The school was closed and empty because of a lack of local students. But the plan to move a drug rehabilitation center to the vacant building met vigorous opposition from Mui Wo residents, who suspected the Christian Zheng Sheng students could be disruptive to their community. They also had demanded that the facility be used for their own children.

China Daily

(HK Edition 04/13/2010 page1)