Fwd: Education Bureau fails to ensure the quality of eLearning in local schools
Simon H WANG
From: Simon H WANG <simo...@hkbu.edu.hk>
Date: Mon, May 4, 2020 at 9:19 PM
Subject: Education Bureau fails to ensure the quality of eLearning in local schools
To: Letters to the Editor <let...@scmp.com>
Cc: Zhiqing HUANG <1942...@life.hkbu.edu.hk>
As the world battles coronavirus, it is a relief to see that Hong Kong had only single-digit imported cases in recent weeks and local schools are expected to resume in phases. Unfortunately, however, the Education Bureau has failed the local schoolchildren and their parents with its hands-off approach to eLearning. Given the enormous amount of government expenditure on school education, the Bureau must be held accountable for its maladministration amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Due to the public health crisis, local schools have been suspended since late January. In a press release on 12 February, the Secretary of Education encouraged schoolchildren to achieve “suspending classes without suspending learning”. In the document, the Bureau touted its HKD 14 billion investment and HKD 0.7 billion annual expenditure on IT in education and expressed its confidence on systematic e-learning plans of local schools. Yet, on another press release on 2 April, the Bureau played down the importance of e-learning and suggested that schools could use various means such as printed learning materials and helpline services to support learning.
While we agree that flexibility is important, the Bureau must recognize the fact that eLearning, especially real-time online teaching, is the closest substitute for on-campus teaching that has become impossible. This is the reason why all local universities expect students and teachers to follow the usual schedules to have online lessons. In contrast to the universities’ commitment to quality education, it is regrettable that the Bureau sees no need for schools to stick to the schedule or the curriculum through eLearning. In response to our enquiry, the Bureau said it kept “close contact with schools to understand their learning and teaching arrangement during class suspension” Yet, it cannot provide the number of schools it has contacted for such information. Neither does the bureau expect schools to make up the classes in the summer.
As over 56% of more than HKD 92 billion government expenditure on education in 2019-20 was devoted to primary and secondary schools, the Education Bureau must ensure the taxpayers get our money’s worth for over HKD 26 billion allocated for school education in the second half of the school year. As the local schools will face more uncertainty due to protest and coronavirus, we urge the Panel on Education of the Legislative Council, the Audit Commission and the Ombudsman to review the Education Bureau’s policies on eLearning during school suspension.
Zhiqing Huang, Simon Wang, Kowloon Tong
Phone number of Huang: 67624996
Phone number of Wang: 51998025
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