Change

 

Professor K.M. Cheng

 

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For St. Paul’s College 165th Anniversary Exhibition Day, we are privileged to have an interview with Professor Cheng Kai Ming to share with us his personal thoughts on the need for change in Hong Kong’s education system in order to achieve equality in education.

   

Career of Teaching

Before Professor Cheng started his teaching career at St. Paul’s College in 1979 and he founded a private school in Shau Kei Wan in 1970.  He faced several adversities including school environment and being of a low-income background.  Although students he taught may not perform well academically, he wanted all of his students to have a chance of being applauded on stage, which he considered the motto of the school.  At the invitation of Principal Mr. Timothy Ha, Professor Cheng started teaching at St. Paul’s College as a Maths and Physics teacher from 1979 to 1982 before he was seconded to the University of Hong Kong.  He said that the experience in St. Paul’s College was eye-opening - everything was in order despite of the loose governance of Mr. Ha.  Professor Cheng remarked that sometime things turn out to be better when we put less restriction on students, which can stretch students’ limit and broaden their horizon.

 

Equity vs. Equality in Education

In Economics, equity is a subjective concept that involves normative judgement.  We limit our discussion on equalizing input, output and equalizing opportunity.  Likewise, equality in education can be divided into two aspects: equality of input and output.

 

Firstly, the equality of input refers to the resources which the government equally allocates to different schools in Hong Kong.  According to Professor Cheng, Hong Kong generally achieved equality of input since all government-funded schools receive the same amount of resources.  For example, schools can apply for additional funds from Quality Education Funds to support all-round development of students.  Secondly, the equality of output in education refers to equality in student achievement, which is impossible to be attained.  Professor Cheng agreed that equity in education is a problem that is difficult to solve in Hong Kong.  On the contrary, equality in education can be dealt easier than equity in education.

  

From Professor Cheng’s perspective, the function of education is to enable individual with “equal opportunity”.  It means that although not everyone can achieve their own ultimate goal, they have an equal opportunity to achieve their goal.  “This is the best that the society can do to pursue equity in education” he added.  However, he mentioned two limitations of equal opportunity.  The first one is that disabled students need extra resource.  The second is that every student has their own learning progression.  Professor Cheng stated that the ultimate objective of equal opportunity is to increase the social mobility of students.

 

Change in Labour Market

Inevitably, people will relate education to employability.  Professor Cheng points out that the objective of education should be much more than employability.   In addition, Professor Cheng noted that “the labour market encountered a drastic change in recent years and there are new phenomena in Hong Kong’s labour market.”

   

The first phenomenon is Mismatching.  For HKU in recent years, there are 35% to 40 % of the Bachelor of Laws graduates do not work in legal careers. Moreover, there are 35% of Engineering graduates of HKU do not work in engineering related careers.   Professor Cheng explains that there is excess supply of university graduates and companies may not require graduates with knowledge of specialised fields.  For instance, tertiary sector such as retail banking and accounting companies requires integrity and sensitivity rather than knowledge in accounting.  As a result, the problem of mismatching has worsened over the years.

 

The second phenomenon is people need’s to change jobs and even from the industry.  Professor Cheng stated that there was a forecast conducted by United States Department of Labor in 2006 estimating US citizens aging above 15 will have 10.4 occupations in his/her life.  Although there is no data collected or statistics conducted in Hong Kong concerning the phenomenon, it is a noticeable trend that Hong Kong citizens are changing their jobs more frequently, according to Professor Cheng.  On the contrary, people in the past prefer not changing their job.  The economic environment in the past allowed them to do so as it was relatively stable in the past while employees cannot ensure their job in long run due to the relatively unstable economic environment.  Unemployment and multiple careers or “slash” careers are common in nowadays for even professionals working in investment bank, he added.

 

Resource allocation in education

In order to achieve equity in education, resources would be distributed according to needs. However, should we allocate more resource to SEN (Special needs in education) or gifted students?  Professor Cheng did not give a clear answer to this controversy.

 

He suggested that allocating more resources to SEN is a widely recognised practice in the world.  However, Hong Kong failed to allocate more resource in helping the talented, according to Professor Cheng.  For example, Hong Kong government failed to make policies supporting the talented athlete even they participate in the Olympic Games.

 

Professor Cheng said that there should be more DSS schools in Hong Kong from 8% now to 25%, so that the purpose of DSS schools (more freedom and flexibility left to the school in decision-making) can be more significant.

 

Message to Paulines

The most significant spirit and culture of St. Paul’s College is liberty, giving every Paulines chances and space to explore, develop and showcase their talents, Professor Cheng said.  On the contrary, the culture of punishment is common in neighboring countries as well, not just in Hong Kong.  Therefore, every Pauline should cherish and pass on the value of freedom in St. Paul’s College.  He also recommended us a book, How Will You Measure Your Life?, from which Professor quoted a story: there is a reunion at the Harvard Business School every five years; the first reunion was superb as almost everyone had found promising jobs.  By the 10th anniversary, some of them missed it due to their heavy workload. By the 15th anniversary, some of them were fired or had divorced and some were even sent to prison by the 20th anniversary.  Life is a marathon, Professor added.

 

Writer: Chiu Tsun Hei, Austin (5E)