感谢日历

帮教授赶文章，说好七月底交稿。于是，一直以为今天是期限，紧张得要命。无意间翻看备忘录，才发觉……

原来7月有31日！！

啊～那种人生突然“多出一天”的感觉，真奇妙……就算文章已经如期完成。

转载：Education for all

家家有本难念的经，国情与政策制定也一样。喜欢中国，喜欢印度，就因为这些地方对一颗容易变得官僚化的心，起着时刻呼唤的作用。人生，必须在知足和进取之间求取平衡；其实，所有事仿佛都是如此。但愿年轻一代不会成为既不知幸福又自恃过人的 spoilt brats...

Education for all cont...

During the course of the debate on education that brought Hillary Clinton and actor Amir Khan on a platform a young volunteer stated that she had been trying to teach five children under a tree, but that the kids' parents would rather they begged or sold trinkets on trains. This was a touching and yet very real question.

Some time back I had asked my staff to ensure that all pwhy children of school going age should be enrolled in school. Parents had to be convinced and in case they did not agree, the child was not to be accepted in our programme. I was soon to learn that it was yet another silly diktat issued without truly assessing the reality of the situation. There is a bunch of girls well in their pre teens who attend our classes and yet do not go to school. The reason is that their mothers work in the morning and need these girls to man the home and tend to their younger siblings. In the afternoon the moms are back at home and the children can come an attend classes at pwhy and thus educate themselves. Needless to say I immediately reversed the diktat and told the teachers not only to accept them in class but to give them special attention. Some of these girls are exceptionally bright and it occurred to me that if they could not been mainstreamed they could perhaps do their schooling through the open school. Something we need to look at.

There are many instances when children are kept away from school not to be put to work and earn money but to enable mothers to work and this is a reality that all law makers and educationists should keep in mind. And if we were to go a step further, parents who send their children to beg or sell trinkets as was the case with the young volunteer, here too it is a matter of survival. The few rupees brought by the child go a long way in keeping the fires burning. In a country as large as ours and where millions live in poverty any law has to be sensitive to the situation on the ground. In pwhy classes we allow girls to bring their baby siblings to class as if we did not, the child would not be allowed to come. The situation is critical in urban slums where often both parents need to work and the only way they can do so is if the elder child is left at home to tend to the smaller ones. And in our society it is the girl child who is sacrificed.

I dreamt a dream..

I think, I have been thinking too much. So much so that my dream appeared in my dreams.

In that wonderland of fantasy, my best buddy from secondary school and I were roped in by MOE to share our experiences on an issue that they were eager to resolve. I 'recycled' my old powerpoint, and gave a casual presentation on the things I saw, thought and felt. Silence prevailed throughout, even as I came to my last slide.

So I went out. Cheers erupted from within the room, after my buddy gave his take on the issue.

Puzzled, I asked my buddy what he had presented to the panel. He handed me a brochure, full of colors but which most striking was the unabashed use of various shades of orange. It was a comic stripe, with cute characters and balloon captions with scribbling that was unmistakably my buddy's hand-writing. Four big words jumped out at me: MANNING, TURN, STEERING and U-TURN.

Tell this to any 'dream interpreter', and chances are they'll say that I am suffering from a dose of apprehension over some driving test.

But no, I have no driving exams scheduled. I have not even taken driving lessons yet. As I snuggled out of my blanket, my half-open eyes taking in the brilliance of the orange-red sunrise, deep down I knew what the dream was all about.

I was actually developing my own metaphor for a theory of teacher change.

Stage 1 - MANNING: To activate any change, you first need to man the system, providing a lot of guidance and hand-holding, so that teachers don't reject new initiatives right at the onset;

Stage 2 - TURN: Gradually, teachers start to diverge from their projected route of habitual movement, and turn in the direction that you wish for them to move in;

Stage 3 - STEERING: Yet having just turn isn't enough. You need to steer teachers in the appropriate manner, so that they don't skid off the road as they switch direction from what they have been used to;

Stage 4 - U-TURN: And finally, as teachers gain enough confidence, they made the attempt to U-turn, unlearning what they have learnt in the past, and relearning what is needed in an eccentric, post-modern world with developments that one can easily fail to grasp without sufficient brain power to construct their own epistemological understanding of phenomena.

For far too long, Singapore's education landscape has been dominated by policy and systemic changes. Teachers, the key movers of all plans - fantastical or otherwise, often end up neglected by the system. Working like gears, all they need is to ensure that their teeth are aligned well with those of their adjacent gears so that the whole machinery continues operating. After a while, gears learn that their destinies are but to spin non-stop on the spot. That is when you have disillusionment with a career that is supposed to be as sacred as picking up stranded starfishes on the beaches and throwing them back into the seas where they belong.

So now, with a doctor helming MOE, we are finally seeing changes in MOE's approach towards teacher education. Yes, teachers remain part of a big family, but they now need to begin seeing themselves like doctors. Every doctor matters, just as every patient does. Every teacher needs to make his or her own diagnosis, and make sure that not a single one of his or her fourty students end up breathing their last breath due to the teacher's misjudgment or faulty prescription.

So much so for being a workaholic, but who cares. I dreamt a dream, and that keeps me fired with spurs of passion - just like the shades of bright orange that shroud fantasy and reality.

[Straits Times Review] It's the teachers, not the language

By Cheong Suk-Wai, Senior Writer

IT IS hard being a child in Malaysia these days. Take 12-year-old Hazwan Arif, who was among the first students to learn maths and science in English. That was in 2004, after then premier Mahathir Mohamad ordered the switch in medium of instruction from the Malay language.

This September, Hazwan will take the Primary School Evaluation Test's (UPSR) maths and science papers in English. By 2014, however, he will have to take the school-leaving examinations in Malay. He will also have to cope with more English classes as the government wants to improve the people's fluency in it.

That is the quandary Malaysia's five million schoolchildren find themselves in, after the government reversed last week the six-year-old teaching policy which had cost RM40 million (S$16.2 million) a year to run.

Deputy Premier Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also Education Minister, said the switch was necessary now that the latest Trends In International Mathematics And Science report showed that between 2003 and 2007, Malaysia's proficiency in maths plunged from 10th to 26th place. Among the 59 countries studied, its science placing slid from 20th to 28th. Singapore was No. 3 in maths and No. 1 in science.

Dr Mahathir has since responded to the government's volte face by polling Malaysians on whether they agreed with the change. So far, 86 per cent of the 86,000 or so who voted were against the switch.

But language hindering classroom learning is not really the crux of the issue. Many Malaysians, even those in kampungs, have ample access to the Internet and satellite TV channels with English-language programming, science shows included.

It is not even about playing politics in the schoolyard by debating whether Malay or English is more effective in uniting Malaysia. Its education system is already fragmented into four different types of public schools: national (Malay), Chinese, Tamil and religious.

The real issue is the poor quality of its teachers. But this is a politically prickly poser since the 300,000 or so teachers who make up the bulk of its civil service are mostly ethnic Malays.

Madam Cheong Chin Yoke, 62, who trained maths and science teachers to teach in English in anticipation of the 2003 change, said the training programme consisted of intensive cramming of all that the teachers had to learn into all of three weeks.

Madam Cheong, who taught in a teachers' training college between 1983 and 2003, added: 'Teaching involves impromptu interaction. So it is very taxing on teachers who are weak in English because they are not sure if they are getting their message across with the words they may be using. They've to search for the right words in English all the time.'

Dr Hannah Pillay, a Malaysian educationist, once pointed out that teachers learnt best from fellow teachers. For many Malaysians, however, having to ask for help is seen as humiliating, and being made to feel small is anathema.

'It's a vicious circle,' Madam Cheong agreed.

Teaching used to be a well-respected profession in a country where teachers shaped political thought and political parties. But in the boom years between 1990 and 1997, the country's brightest graduates eschewed teaching for banking and law.

To stem the exodus, the government lowered the bar for entry into teaching to the lowest credit one can get in school-leaving exams. Then came the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which left more than 600,000 graduates jobless, most of them of Malay ethnicity. The government then aggressively recruited them for teaching.

Today, the profession has become a job of last resort. Teachers are still poorly paid and often given short shrift by parents of the children they teach when things do not go well. On their part, some teachers have been known to not be above hurling racist slurs at students.

Things got to such a head that, late last month, the ministry finally made a move to tighten the screws on the quality of teachers. It will soon issue a blueprint for professionalism called, well, Malaysian Teacher Standards.

To be sure, attitude is not a blueprint or budget consideration, especially not when the government already spends 25 per cent of its yearly budget (up from 6.6 per cent in 1999) on education now, to little effect.

As Madam Cheong pointed out, non-Malay teachers like her who were made to teach in Malay from 1970 just dove into the deep end as it was a matter of putting food on the table. She mused: 'Maybe teachers today are just not trying hard enough.'

They will need to try harder.

As Dr Pillay once noted, it is pointless to talk about the Malay language as a means of uniting the various racial groups when they are already riven apart anyway by unequal career opportunities - simply because some were taught well and most were not.

孩子……

“A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”

—— Forest Witcraft

Quote of the day

Policy makers "should give existing policies time to work, but they should also consider making those policies stronger".

"There is a difference between defending what you have done so far and being defensive."

—— Paul Krugman

熟悉中的陌生

熟悉的31号巴士路线，
在每一个抬头的瞬间，都能感到陌生
时而惊喜，时而惊叹，时而惊愕，时而诧异
这家园，变了？没变？
在白云飘拂的清澈蓝天下，
在绿茵摇曳的艳阳微风中，
在少年壮志的温馨提点间，
在无声盘旋的清幽乐符里，
晃一晃神，吸一口气。
我原是归人？是过客？
也许，这不重要。

Daremo ga dare ka ni aisareru tameni
Kono yo ni inochi wo kiramekaseru no sa

(For anyone to be loved by someone, makes life in this world shine)

七一：捍卫《基本法》精神

2009这特殊的一年，中国经过了藏独运动50周年、五四运动90周年、六四运动20周年后，在“热烈庆祝”共和国成立60周年之前，还有今天这一个坎要过。

继2003年数十万群众在“七一”上街抗议基本法二十三条立法，今天，又会有多少港人上街游行，继续呼吁捍卫《基本法》精神，争取2012年获得行政长官和立法会“双普选”？值得拭目以待。

这里转载香港友人的邮件，一窥港人为何一提起“一国两制”，就犹如惊弓之鸟：

当「五十年不变」,变成「十五年开始变」。
当「特别行政区」,变成「特别方法管治区」。
当「一国两制」变成「一区两管(治队伍)」。
当「特区政府」变成「特区影子政府」、「特区傀儡政府」(满州国？)AND「遥控 管治政府」。
97以来，向来港人对特区政府的信任和支持分数，都较对中央政府的信任分数为低。
港人对北京政府的态度，由82年的猜疑、89年的恐惧怕害，惊弓之鸟、92-97年的 担心和困惑，直至后来金融风暴、SARS、自由行、CEPA、奥运马术、每年七一北大 人都会来港……令港人满以为自己是"the only one and the special one"，「谁人 能代替你地位」（张国荣歌），小小风雨就有北大人撑腰。港人以为香港，在北京 政府心目中，地位超然，高于上海、台湾……。而北京的领导人，又得到港人的尊重 敬畏，时而严肃、时而亲切，似父母照顾子女，恩威并施。

当大家以为中共的管治思维已经渐渐地改变，变得开明、体察民意时，原来……南轲 一梦，七百万港人发了一场十多年的大梦……？！
北京政府用了十多年，两代领导人（江朱、胡温）苦苦经营的形像（起码对港人而 言），难道就毁于区区一篇党干部Journal Article？（如果这篇是大学Journal Article，并不代表党立场，那大家就不会有如此巨大迴响）

似乎港人、中共对「香港特别行政区」这个名词及背后意义，都各有表述。对基本 法精神，更是面一套，底一套，嘿嘿，「释法」的手段，变得「意义深远」了。

【联合早报】中国的政策执行力为什么被弱化？

● 郑永年

为什么在没有任何有效的外部制约的情况下，中国的政策执行力如此低下呢？这就表明体制内部本身出现了很大的问题，就是巨大的权力内消耗。

面对政策执行力快速衰落，要巩固和强化执行力，已经不是政府部门本身所能做得到的事情了。这属于政治改革的范畴。从制度技术的层面看，这些改革都是可以做得到的。从国家制度建设来说，这些技术制度上的改革要比高调而理想的选举和民主都要有效得多。

　 　这些年来，越来越多的迹象表明中国的政策执行力出现了很大的问题。无论是经济改革、机构改革还是社会改革都似乎已经走到了顶点。尽管中国高层面对无穷的 社会经济问题推出了一系列的改革方案和政策，但往往是雷声大、雨点小。老问题还没有解决，新问题又出现，没有能力来解决新老问题，只好一直往后推，问题积 累得越来越多，解决的难度也越来越大。如果一直这样下去，势必酿成重大的改革危机。

　　从理论上说，一党执政体制或者行政主导的体制的最优越之处，就是其政策制定和执行的效率。马克思和列宁当初反对西方民主的三权分立，提倡议行合一，他们的出发点就是要强化政府的行政能力。在西方，各国为了避免专制的出现，实行三权分立，而宁可牺牲政府的行政执行力。

体制内部出现大问题

　　中国承继列宁主义传统，实行一党执政体制。在这个体制下，很难说外部社会力量有制度化的机制来制约执政党的内部运作。那么，为什么在没有任何有效的外部制约的情况下，中国的政策执行力如此低下呢？这就表明体制内部本身出现了很大的问题，就是巨大的权力内消耗。

　 　提高行政效率一直是中国机构改革甚至政治改革的最主要的目标。很多人拒绝民主改革其中一个担忧就是民主会损害行政效率。中国的改革重点一直放在机构改 革，或者说是国务院系统或者政府系统的改革。改革的指导思想是“大社会、小政府”。经过了赵紫阳、李鹏、朱镕基和温家宝各届政府的努力，政府机构改革的空 间已经不多，很难再在这方面做文章，进行继续的改革。较之世界上大多数国家，中国的行政系统已经比较小规模了。

　　实际上，中国面临很大的 压力促使政府行政部门的扩张。第一，政府部门还没有能够从经济领域退出来。第二，政府转型成为服务型政府成为必然，大部分公共服务需要政府来提供。和其他 国家一样，提供公共服务是政府扩张的主要一个根源。第三，近年来所追求的建立规制型政府需要政治的改革，不是国务院系统所能决定和实施的。大部制改革已经 有了一个形式，但还缺乏实质性的内容。

总之，这么多年来，中国的机构改革改来改去，改革的只是行政执行部门，也就是一般称之为“干活的人”的领域。经过了那么多次的机构调整和改革，从广义上来 说，中国的政府还是很大，甚至变得更大了。实际的情况是，当官的人越来越多，而干活的人越来越少。这不可避免地造成了“当官的人”经常去折腾“干活的人 ”。这其中所造成的内耗是超出人们的想象的。

　　中国从中央到地方，六套班子，上下一般粗。这些机构的并存使得政府又粗又大，并且经常互相制约，在 党政之间的制约尤其严重。因为都是党的干部的统治，这些机构间形式繁多的制约，并且经常没有制度性的规定，相互间的责权不清不楚。在很大程度上，这些制约 往往比西方的有制度性规定的制约大得多、厉害得多。可惜的是，尽管制约很多，但并不能阻止党政官员和机构的权力滥用。因此，尽管反腐败的机构不断增多，并 且年年都有反腐败的运动，但腐败照样盛行。

需设计有效的政治改革

　　如何减少或者遏制腐败？因为不能实行类似西方的外部分权 和制约，只好从内部找方法。这些年很多人都在提倡政府执行部门的内部分权，就是行政权力内部的三权分立。这个思路似乎已经得到大多数人的认同，并将在一些 地方试点。可惜的是，如果不能解决好行政系统和其他系统的关系，这个思路一旦成为现实，无疑会继续导致行政执行力的进一步衰落，有可能促使政府处于残废状 态。

　　不管有多么好的改革设想，行政改革本身已经面临困境：没有促使改革深入的动力；但即使可以改革，光依靠行政改革实际上也解决不了任 何问题。搞不好，反而会导致更多的问题的出现。所以，就需要设计有效的政治改革。什么是政治改革？这里的共识似乎更少。一谈到政治改革，很多人就会想到民 主，想到选举，想到多党制。这些可以谈，但似乎远离中国的现实。除成功的西方民主外，在西方之外，选举民主并没有解决任何问题。较之选举民主，中国更需要 广义上的政治机构改革，就是包括党政六套班子在内的机构理性化和合理化。制度机构是国家的基本制度，基本制度没有建立好之前，选举民主必然导致乱象。

　 　广义的政治改革就要求超越行政系统改革。这方面，改革就有很多的空间。比如说六套班子问题。中国的宪法规定的是四级政府（中央、省（直辖市）、县（市） 和乡（镇）。如果宪法规定的各级政府需要六套班子，那么宪法没有规定的政府层级并不见得需要。实际上，这六套班子如果说在中央和省一级表现为必要，那么在 县乡两级，除了解决官员职位问题职位，并不具有实质性的意义。深圳市开始是党政两套班子，运作良好，但后来不知为什么又要发展成为六套班子。

须解决党政关系问题

　 　除了六套班子要做机构调整之外，政策执行力更需要解决党政关系问题，这是关键。这两者的关系处理不好就会影响整个政权系统的运作，而同时矛盾也大多出于 这两者。上世纪八十年代邓小平时期曾经讨论过党政分开还是党政分工的问题。实践证明，党政分开不可能，分工则有可能。党政分工在中央层面做得最好，但到了 地方党政矛盾越来越严重。党政关系从中央到地方一定要一刀切吗？其实不然。越到基层，就越应该实行党政合一的制度。例如在村一级（尽管已经不是基层政 权），为什么还要搞党支部和选举出来的村民委员会呢？党推出自己的候选人再参加选举就可以了。当然，也要容许其他团体推出来的候选人。在党的干部之间、党 的干部和非党人才之间形成竞争是好事。只有面临一定的压力，党才能去任用真正的能人和人才。在乡镇级、县（市）级，党政合一的制度也是可以的。越到下面， 处理的事情就越具体，没有多大的政治性，因此也没有必要搞党政分家或者分工。否则，反而制造矛盾。越到高层，党政关系就越好处理。因为国家大，党要把握国 家的发展方向，而政府则集中于执行。

　　省县一级的党政关系也可以通过人大系统而得到合理化和理性化。党可以通过人大而执政，就是说产生政 府和监督政府。现在大多数省份都是省委书记兼人大主任。这已经有了一个可利用的机制了。在各级人大，大多数都是党政干部和党员积极分子，党通过人大就足可 以产生政府和监督政府。如果这样做，中国就会变成类似于其他一些国家的行政主导体制。同时，如果党能够通过人大而执政，党本身的机构就可以得到大调整和精 简。

取消不必要的假民主

取消不必要的假民主也可以是政治改革的内容。历史是开放的，民主化并不见得就是唯一的发展方向。很多年来，为了给人们一个民主的印象，各级党组织和政府做 了不少假民主。即使在西方民主国家，民主的适用范围也是有限度的，基本上限于政治官员的产生。很多地方不仅不需要民主的，引入民主反而有害。例如，司法、 军队和学术研究单位等等，专业和职业精神而非民主选举应当是占主导地位的。就是说，这些组织应当是用绩效来选拔人才的。中国很多这样的组织引入了民主，大 大损害了专业精神的提高。专业、职业精神低下是中国行政效率低下的又一个重要根源。

　　在政府部门也有假民主的出现。例如选举副市长过程中，搞不懂 为什么一定要弄一个陪选的。党一边把他弄为候选人，另一边又做工作要人家不要选他。大家都是党自己选拔出来的候选人，为什么不让他们进行一些自由选举呢？ 如果他不合格，那么就不要提名他。提名他之后，就要给予平等的选举权力。实际上，在很多场合，这个被做工作而落选的人肯定是记恨一辈子，更加剧了党政矛 盾。

　　类似的例子不胜枚举。不管怎样，这些例子主要想说明一个问题，那就是，政策执行力低下已经成为中国各方面进步最大的阻碍了。社会经 济的发展正在产生着越来越多、越来越严重的问题，这表明执政党及其政府要担负更大的责任，通过有效的政策制定和执行来应付和解决所面临的问题。面对政策执 行力快速衰落，要巩固和强化执行力，已经不是政府部门本身所能做得到的事情了。这属于政治改革的范畴。从制度技术的层面看，这些改革都是可以做得到的。从 国家制度建设来说，这些技术制度上的改革要比高调而理想的选举和民主都要有效得多。

　　

作者是新加坡国立大学东亚研究所所长，文章仅代表个人观点

Quote of the day

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find

—— Samuel Johnson