I read in today's Hong Kong news about how the Examination Authority mis-graded the English Part B paper of the Hong Kong School Certificate Exam. No, they didn't mis-grade one or two papers. There were a total of 670 wrong grades! The Examination Authority announced this a few days after the school cert results were out, never mind that this test literally affects the life and future of millions of students. Most of the grades were adjusted upwards, yielding a total of 23 students who were previously denied spots in Form 6 because of failed English grades who now qualify for a Form 6 spot.
The aggravating thing is that the Education Department urged schools to be "generous" in opening one or two extra spots for the students, but wouldn't give the schools more funding if they do. Also aggravating is the fact that news of the wrong grades came out on Friday and no officials were available to talk to reporters for half the day on Friday because they were "in meetings". Then on Saturday, instead of putting in emergency increased hours to answer questions from students, parents, and schools, the relevant departments only opened their usual half-day Saturday hours.
Watching this from across the Pacific, I just can't help but compare HK government to US government. Okay, we don't ever open on Saturdays, so HK is one up on us. But the disappearing civil service bureaucracy is a reality here as well as in other countries. Thirty forty years ago, HK government was a fine place for a bright young man (okay, they only took care of bright young men then because there was nothing for bright young women other than teaching and nursing). People used to say that going into banking is getting a gold rice bowl and going into government is getting an iron rice bowl--not as glamorous or expensive as a gold rice bowl, but it wouldn't break! Now, bright young people don't go into public service and civil service positions are being eliminated left and right in the name of budget management. Top level civil service positions are being replaced by political appointments, in HK, as in the US.
So what we find are holes everywhere. People who are not as qualified or not as bright working in civil service jobs who make mistakes grading papers, among other things. To top it off, the systems are old too. I bet you HK government is using the same crumbling old mainframes installed in the late 70's and early 80's we are using in federal, state, and municipal government agencies in the US. I am of course most familiar with my own Agency, but a friend who works for the school district says they can't even figure out who's on their payroll easily out of their system. Welcome to 2005, using a completely outdated model of human and technological infrastructure.
I'm not saying that the old civil service bureaucracy was perfect. By no means. But it was predictable. Change happened slowly, but usually in a carefully planned way. By eliminating positions willy-nilly in an effort to cut costs, by placing inexperienced, ego-puffed political hecks in powerful decision-making positions, and by not having good strategic processes to replace old physical and technological infrastructure, government as an industry is heading towards a crisis everywhere. And who would have the vision, the knowledge, and the courage to fix it?
No comments:
Post a Comment