There has been a significant increase in public awareness of the Basic Law over the past two years, according to the findings of a survey released by Hong Kong 's Constitutional Affairs Bureau on Saturday.

The survey showed that the percentage of the general public who had heard of the Basic Law had risen to 90 percent, up from around 80 percent in the year 2000 and those who perceived that they had some or a good knowledge of the Basic Law had nearly doubled from 25.2 percent to 48.3 percent over the same period.

The percentage of students who claimed they had never heard of the Basic Law had dropped significantly from 19.8 percent in 2000 to 2 percent and those who considered they had some or a good knowledge of the Basic Law had increased from 32.7 percent to 57.6 percent.

The survey also showed that all teachers and civil servants had heard of the Basic Law or had some or a good knowledge of the Basic Law.

The survey, which was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2002, enumerated about 12,100 households and covered about 18,000 individual respondents.