Fwd: The Education Bureau should promote paperless operations in local schools
Simon H WANG
From: Simon H Wang <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>
Date: Wed, Apr 11, 2018 at 8:04 PM
Subject: The Education Bureau should promote paperless operations in local schools
To: Letters to the Editor <let...@scmp.com>
The Education Bureau should be commended for its efforts to save the environment through educational and managerial programmes outlined in its Environmental Report 2016. According to the report, the Bureau has enhanced students’ environmental awareness through organising a range of school-based and action-oriented activities. It has also adopted a Green Management Framework and appointed Energy Managers to oversee the implementation of energy-saving and green measures. Nevertheless, to further protect the environment and save resources, the Bureau must work more closely with the local schools in areas such as saving paper and adopting new technologies for communication and administration.
The Environmental Report 2016 indicates that the paper consumption of 65 government schools has increased from 124,885 reams in 2015 to 125,661 reams in 2016. While monitoring the paper consumption of government schools is important for saving the environment, the Bureau should also collect data about paper consumption in all the local schools receiving subsidies from the government. A Paper Saving Competition has been organised for the government schools to promote paper-saving efforts. The Bureau should invite subsidised schools to join the competition in future so more colleagues in the education sector can share ideas and tips for green practices.
Adopting new technologies for communication and administration can further reduce the consumption of paper and energy in the daily operations of the bureau and the schools. The Bureau has provided its staff with email accounts and Intranet platforms to go paperless in daily communication. Nevertheless, it does not issue guidelines on how local schools should adopt new technologies to communicate with parents. An enormous amount of paper could have been saved if the local schools use emails and mobile phone apps to communicate with parents instead of issuing paper-based circulars. The Bureau must offer more incentives and technical support for the local schools to go paperless in their daily operations.
The Bureau should also set an example for saving paper by adopting eApplication for Primary One Admission (POA). In 2016 and 2017, about 52,000 and 56,000 parents collected paper-based application forms from the Bureau for POA. Going paperless for POA can not only save a large amount of paper and manpower. It will also send a clear signal to local schools about the government’s determination on promoting green practices.
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