Dear Principals, Teachers and Parents,

The examination of the “Education (Amendment) Bill 2002” by the Bills Commission of the Legislative Council is approaching its conclusion. You surely know that I have expressed my strong reservations, but I am afraid you may not understand the reasons that justify my negative position. I am happy to have this occasion to explain them to you.

Maybe it is equally important that I answer a preliminary question: Why it is only now that Bishop Zen comes out with the explanation?

Not long after the publication of the “Consultation Paper” in 2000 I wrote a long letter to all the supervisors and managers of Catholic schools expressing my worries and calling for their concern. I gave a copy of the letter to the Education Department but the letter was not to be published.

The letter roused the attention of the Education Department and Mrs. Fanny Law invited me to breakfast and I was able to make a long presentation of my reasons. She listened but no discussion followed which might bring some conclusion. Her successor Mr. Cheung did the same thing to me. Although both sides elaborated on their reasons, it was still short of being a dialogue leading to a conclusion.

When in November 2002 I met with the Chief Executive Mr. Tung for the first time I mentioned to him my worries regarding the Education Bill. He told me that he thought we Catholics agreed in principle with the Bill. When I mentioned my letter he said that he had not seen it. “Anyway,” he said, “things have gone very far by now. It is too late for me to do anything.”

When Mr. Arthur Li was made Secretary for Education and Manpower, the Bill was ready to be introduced to the Legislative Council. He could not be expected to do anything to change the course of the events.

When the Bill was finally in the hands of the Legislative Council, we discovered that the response of the Association of the Sponsoring Bodies to the consultation paper has not been duly considered. When, during the public hearing session organized by the Bills Commission of the Legislative Council, the Association repeated their requests, the response from the Administration was again far from being satisfactory.

In the whole process, the Government has never shown to acknowledge us as their partner in running education for so many years. Without due consultation with us they were pushing a legislation which would change radically our mutual relation (the then head of the EMB, Mr. Leung, in fact, called the Bill “revolutionary”).

To bring the problem to the attention of our faithful I wrote an article in our Catholic Weekly (28/9/2003, 5/10/2003) Mr. Arthur Li and Mr. H.K. Ho gave a rude but superficial response to that article respectively in the SCMP and in the Ming Pao without giving an answer to my querries.

All through these years the Government did much propaganda work, the best of which were a press release of 2,000 words and the 31/1/04 Reporting Session to sponsoring bodies, parents, principals and teachers.

Before that Mrs. Fanny Law took the pains to come to talk to me for two hours, it could only be a nice socializing between two civilized persons, since the Government made it clear through Mr. M.Y. Cheng that the sponsoring bodies would not be allowed to choose other models of Management Committee.

I had to bore you with this piece of history so that you can see how the frustration for not being given a chance to discuss the matter had pushed us to open confrontation. During the debate with the Government we may have caused some misunderstanding in the mind of our principals, teachers and parents that is why I am now coming to explain to you the following points.

1. We are not against the “School-based Management” principle, but against the imposition of an uniform model for its implementation. School-based Management means participation of all the stakeholders ––– teachers, parents, alumni and professionals in the society ––– so that together they run the education according to the concrete situation of the individual schools. We whole-heartedly embrace such a principle, and several Catholic schools have adopted such a principle exemplarily.

We sincerely believe that the “School Advisory Council” or “School Executive Committee” proposed by the No.7 Report of the Education and Manpower Bureau (1997) is a very good instrument for the implementation of school-based management (more teachers and parents can join, there are more opportunities to discuss problems, and any problem can be discussed except decisions on personnel and final decisions on financial arrangements). The two-tier structure allowed in the same Report respects the distinction between the supervisory and the functionary levels and better guarantees faithfulness to the vision and mission of the sponsoring bodies in running schools. It is regrettable that this No.7 Report has been practically disregarded and put aside.

2. Mr. Arthur Li in his SCMP article insinuated that I consider our teachers and parents as “potential enemies” such a divisive tactic is irresponsible. The fact is that not a few Catholic schools have already teacher managers and parent managers, invited by the sponsoring bodies to join or nominated by colleagues and appointed by the sponsoring bodies. These managers are mostly teachers who have worked many years in our school or parents with strong loyalty to our vision and mission in education. With such managers a consensus is the order of the day. But a teacher manager or parent manager elected according to the new Bill may not necessarily embrace our vision and mission, or even have contrary convictions and feel his/her duty (in conscience) to challenge it, then you have conflict in the management committee, which becomes politicized.

3. Mr. H.K. Ho accuses me of “double standards”: upholding democracy in society and defending dictatorship in managing schools. But obviously society as a whole and schools are two different things. Universal suffrage may be the best way to know the will of the people but the Management Committee of a school is supposed to run the school according to a well established vision and mission, and to do this in an harmonious atmosphere.

The government on the one hand insists that the Bill introduces democracy in the school, on the other insists that by appointing 60% of the managers we still have the decision power in our hands. (Is not this self-contradictory?) But in fact the Government knows very well that 60% of managers do not guarantee anything, the problems cannot be solved by voting, one stubborn teacher manager or parent manager can create havoc.

Of course, even a non-manager teacher or parent can cause disorder in the school. On the other hand even after the passing of the Bill there may not arise any problem in many schools for many years, but the danger will be there in the system, a danger of division and politicising, which disrupts the harmonious atmosphere so necessary for education work. And when this happens, the Government would (too happily?) intervene and send its officials to “manage” the Management Committee directly.

4. Democracy entails pluralism. Every school has its specific, but also well accepted, vision and mission. Parents have a choice. Teachers should also be allowed to choose. The Government should not force teachers to teach in Catholic schools if they disagree strongly with the Catholic vision of education. The Government must surely avoid creating an opportunity for such teachers to overthrow the Catholic spirit from within a Catholic school.

If some parents resent Catholic education, then the Government must respect their choice. If the “market functioning” shows that our Catholic schools are no more appreciated, we accept the defeat, but this doesn’t seem to be the actual case. We are worried instead that in the situation created by the new Bill we may not be able to uphold our vision and mission, we are not resigned to accept this kind of defeat.

5. The Management Committee’s role is to supervise. At present, the Government supervises the sponsoring bodies, these, through the supervisor and managers they appoint, supervise the school (Principals and teachers). This is a very effective system and saves much money for the Government. In the IMC proposed by the Bill, will salaried principals and teachers supervise themselves? Or will the Government directly supervise them (having bypassed the sponsoring bodies)?

In the present system, the Supervisor is the link between the sponsoring body and the management committee; between the management committee and the school. In the 2000 Consultation Paper even the word “supervisor” disappeared altogether without any explanation. Now the Government is ready to grant the sponsoring bodies to appoint a supervisor as chairman of the Management Committee, but this will no more be the same as the present Supervisor, because in the Bill it is repeatedly made clear that it is the Management Committee which is collegially responsible before the Government, and no constitution of individual schools can represent anything against the law.

6. The main object of supervision by the Management Committee is the personnel. The Government must know that the Catholic Diocesan schools used to have a very accurate and careful process for selecting the Principals. The new Bill only establishes that there should be a Selection Committee made of representatives of the Management Committee and of the sponsoring bodies, without giving any further specification to guide it in its important and delicate work (the interests of different people are being involved). Is this a responsible way of dealing with the problem?

When recruiting new Principals the Catholic Diocese, in view of the overall benefit of Catholic schools makes some inter-school personnel adjustment (I suppose, as the Government does for its schools). Under the new legislation with what authority can the sponsoring bodies still do such adjustment?

Will the Government grant special dispensation to the sponsoring bodies to act above the individual schools? If so, then, we may ask, why should they, in the first place, exasperate the individuality of the single school, and then dispense from it?

7. Not only in selecting the Principals, but in many other matters the Catholic Diocese leads and supports the individual schools collectively. Besides a Central Management Committee (though it has no legal status) the Diocese has an Education Office made up of full-time staff with qualification of Principal’s level. After the approval of the Bill, will these bodies still be allowed to intervene in individual schools?

Evidently the new Bill takes away the strong point of the “Big” sponsoring bodies, i.e. the S.B. which run many schools. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to develop their strong point in a two-tier structure and promote the school based principle with the “School Advisory or Executive Committee”?

The new system may bring advantages to small sized sponsoring bodies (the new law will protect the individual managers from civil liabilities. But even this is not clear yet!)

Conclusion: since there is a better way to promote school based management and the new law would damage a well established system, proved to be efficient (the new law would bypass the sponsoring bodies, calls for direct intervention of the Government, creating the danger of politicizing school management), we think that the Government owe us an explanation why they are so adamant in imposing an uniform model and not allow us to go back to No. 7 Report and choose the two-tier structure.