BACK

POLICY PAPER

MORE PAPERS

Consultation Documents on the Review of the Education Department

Monday, October 12, 1998 

Education and Manpower Bureau 
9/F, Central Government Offices 
West Wing  
11 Ice House Street  
Central, Hong Kong 

Consultation Documents on the Review of the Education Department

With reference to the open invitation to submit responses to the Government's Review of the Education Department, we are pleased to submit our views.

The HKDF feels that this review is timely. And we would like to congratulate the Government for its openness in publishing a high quality and comprehensive report prepared by Coopers & Lybrand on the Internet.

We are pleased to know that the Coopers & Lybrand Report is a follow-up of Education Commission's Report No.7(ECR7) and we're pleased that the focus of the report is on "efficient/effective"” implementation of missions set out by the Education Commission. 

However, we are concerned with that, overall, the "Administration’s Initial Response" took the point-of-view of the "Administration"(i.e. the bureaucracy) and responded to the implementations the Coopers & Lybrand Report has on the "Structure" of the Education Department but has largely ignored the management aspects of Report. Our recommendation for appropriate action on this point is contained in this letter and in the enclosed list of our responses to specific points raised in the Report. 

It is well known to observers of educational policy development in Hong Kong that there is no lack of dedicated education professional who have made innovative and practical recommendations through various advisory bodies such as the Education Commission. However, these recommendations were seldom implemented because of the “… "lack of resources" "lack of coordination" or general inaction following the publishing of those reports and we're slightly concerned that the Coopers & Lybrand Report could become one of those reports that never got implemented. 

The HKDF believes that the long-term solution to such confusion and inaction would be the creation of a Minister of Education who will bear the political responsibility for his or her policy successes and failures. However, knowing that constitutional reform will be a long and complex process, we would like to see short-term improvements being made to the management of the Education Department in the mean time. 

The main response is, therefore, to recommend the Director of Education to have professional educational qualification, a minimum of a post-graduate degree in education plus at least 10 years of practical teaching experience.  

We further recommend that the Director of Education position be given the full policy-making and execution power in carrying out education reform in Hong Kong. To empower the Director of Education to carry out the required reform, the ranking of the Director of Education should be made equal to that of a Policy Secretary.  

Under this arrangement the Director of Education will report directly to the Chief Secretary and he or she will be required to promote and defend his or her policy initiatives to the Chief Executive, the Executive Council, the Legislative Council and to the Public. The Education & Manpower Bureau will be renamed the "Labour and Manpower Planning Bureau" and policy secretary in charged will then have the time and resources to focus on the more immediate and urgent issues Hong Kong is facing during the economic restructuring process. 

We also agree with the observations made by Prof. Gareth William, Mr Niel Hummeluhr and Prof. K.M.Cheng in the "Review of Education-related Executive and Advisory Bodies(E&MB, May 1998)". In particularly that one advisory body - the Education Commission should be empowered to have the overview over other policy development initiatives across all sectors of education. We further recommend that such advisory bodies should take on the strategic direction of developing them into a "QCCs"(Quality Control Circles) and "Bottom-up-management Mechanism", where initiatives for reform and improvement could be channeled from front-line education professionals - teachers and school principals. 

Our recommendation to restructure the responsibilities of the Education & Manpower Bureau may sound radical. However, this is only a logical evolvement of the Government process as Hong Kong becomes more and more developed. Separating education and labour/manpower planning responsibilities is also entirely in line with other overseas models of government. This action also enhances the Government's commitment to reform our education system and this may be the only way to stop further outcry from stakeholders (i.e. parents and end-users such as the business community)of: "What is wrong with our education system!" 

We would like to see the Chief Executive and other senior government officials to have the political will to put the administrative and political structure in place to make the recommendations made in this report happen. 

Since the proposals put forward by the HKDF are more far reaching than the Coopers & Lybrand Report, we would very much appreciate the opportunity of meeting with the Education and Manpower Bureau to discuss them in more detail. 

Sincerely yours, 

Alan LUNG, Ka-lun 
Chairman 
Hong Kong Democratic Foundation

• The HKDF feels that the Coopers & Lybrand Report is timely and has correctly focused on the management aspects of the Education Department and the Education and Manpower Bureau.
• The HKDF would also like to applaud the quality of the Report and the Government for it openness in publishing the entire content, part of which is critical of the Education & Manpower Bureau.
• However, the HKDF feels that the Report has not addressed the fundamental administrative and political reform required to make reform of our education system possible.
• We feel that education reform is important and critical to the long-term success of Hong Kong; though it may not seem as urgent/pressing as some other issues(e.g. labour, unemployment and manpower retraining)that have been dominating the agenda of the Education & Manpower Bureau. We recommend that an appropriate hierarchy of policy-making power and responsibility should be given to education within the Government.

• One of our key concerns is that the "Administration’s Initial Response" seems to take the point-of-view of the "Administration"(i.e. bureaucracy) and seems to focus on the minute details of what the Report might have on the "Structure". But the management goals set out by the Report seem to have been largely ignored.
• Defensive statements such as: "Supported. We agree that changes are required in the ED. Similarly, other parties in the school sector must also play their part", could imply fundamental rejection of the Report’s recommendations and sense of direction.
• Other statements made throughout the "Administration’s Initial Response" also imply that Coopers & Lybrand may not have taken the existing "Structure and Rules" into consideration; therefore whether the Report could be "practically" implemented is put into doubt.
• To overcome further reluctance for reform, we recommend the Director of Education to have professional educational qualification (a minimum of a post-graduate degree) plus at least 10 years of practical teaching experience.
• We further recommend that the Director of Education position be given the full policy-making and execution power in carrying out education reform in Hong Kong. To empower the Director of Education to carry out the required reform, the ranking of the Director of Education should be made equal to that of a Policy Secretary.
• We recommend that educational advisory bodies should take on the strategic direction of developing into a "QCCs "(Quality Control Circles) and "Bottom-up-management Mechanism" where initiatives for reform and improvement could be channeled from front-line education professionals -- teachers and school principals.
• To successfully organise, prioritise and implement policy development initiatives, professional management units with wide execution power(i.e. not just temporary units with recommendation-only power) should be installed within the Education Department. These units will act as partners to the educational advisory bodies(C&L’s Report "Part III: Management of the Department").

3. Comments on specific sections of the report prepared by Coopers & Lybrand

• We believe that the Terms of Reference of the assignment should have included organisation of the responsibilities at the highest level of Government; thus allowing responsibilities and initiatives to be properly accounted for to the Public.
• Otherwise, we have no reason to dispute the Terms of Reference given to Coopers & Lybrand.

2. Part II: Context of the review

• We agree with the Report’s observation on the need to reform the confusing structure of governance and management of our education system.
• We consider that this is one of the main hurdles we must first overcome if we want to see good ideas implemented to our education system. Public funds and the efforts of many dedicated education professionals in Hong Kong will be wasted if the extremely bureaucratic management structure of our education system is not fixed.

3. Part III: Analysis of the challenges facing the school system and the implication for the ED

• We agree with the three basic assumptions outlined:
• to achieve quality, not just cost savings;
• to identify problems not just with the Education Department, but other parts of our education system;
• the report should have a long-term, not short-term focus.
• We agree that the Education and Manpower Bureau and the Education Department should not micro-manage policy implementation.
• We disagree that workshops need to be organised to facilitate "?pen and frank exchanges" between the Education Department and the Education and Manpower Bureau. We feel the "inability" is probably a symptom of an inappropriate management structure that can be corrected with greater certainty through a more incisive change in management responsibilities.
• We have also heard directly from teachers and school principals that their recommendations and inputs have fallen on deaf ears. And the comments that consultations conducted by the Education Department were nothing more than "PR" exercises. This kind of attitude is ingrained and has been damaging to the morale of front line educational professionals and the reputation of the Government as a whole; not just the reputation of the E&MB and ED.
• We feel that the "Command and Control" mode of so called "Management" as symptom of bureaucracy and lack of professionalism on part of senior officials within the Government. It mirrors the woefully inadequate arrangement of putting non-professionals (i.e. Administrative Officers who are ‘generalist’ by training) into positions that require life-long training and commitment to the profession.
• Nothing short of a major attitude change from being the "all-knowing bureaucrat" to becoming "customer focused" is required if we want improvement to happen to the Education Department and other service departments of the Government.
• We support the detailed findings and recommendations of the Report relating to: management of the sector as a whole, management of the ED, management of individual schools and management of delivery of education in the classroom.
• Our main recommendation is outlined in our "Main Concerns and Recommendations" above: empowering the Director of Education and making him or her solely responsible for policy development and implementation initiatives.

4. Part IV: Vision for the future

• We support the detail finding of the report relating to: roles, organisation structure, staffing issues, management issues.
• We would like to reinforce the comments made by Coopers & Lybrand in the Introduction of this Section that: experience elsewhere in the world shows that changes are possible and can have striking results; and that such changes require consistent political will to succeed.
• Our main concerns are: i. The current structure does not allow stakeholders(teachers, parents, employers, legislators and the public) to exert their political will; and ii. The changes at the highest level are not in place (i.e. the eventual appointment of a Minister of Education and the interim administrative transitions towards this goal.)

5. Part V: Implementation Strategy

We would like to see the Chief Executive and senior Government officials to show the public that they have the courage and political will to put the necessary administrative and political reforms in place to make implementation of educational reform possible.