Publicly funded universities in Hong Kong certainly need to be accountable to taxpayers. This is sometimes explicitly stated, as in the case of the University of Hong Kong, one of whose missions is "to be fully accountable for the effective management of public and private resources bestowed upon the institution and act in partnership with the community over the generation, dissemination and application of knowledge."

I take "to be accountable" to Hong Kong's taxpayers to mean that the universities must serve the interests of the Hong Kong community at large, which, taking a wider world view, would include the interests of humanity in a general sense. We expect our university graduates to have high standards of citizenship, ready to serve others. As a member of the Lingnan community, I have always been proud of our university's motto, "education for service".

A sense of mission in providing service to the local community and to humanity in general means that we need to set our eyes on the needs of the local community, those of humanity, and those of students as members of both the community and of humanity. It also means that we have to distance ourselves from selfishness, self-aggrandizement, and egocentrism.

In considering returns from education, the relevant returns should be social returns. Obviously disseminating the message of service effectively is not an easy task in a highly competitive world. Students are all the time reminded of the need for "adding value" to themselves, so that they will outdo others in the competition.

Competition is a fact of life, and there is little point in protecting students, and for that matter, faculty, from the need to compete. Indeed, would-be faculty members must compete for a university post; existing faculty must compete for promotion; compete for research grants; compete to get their research output published; compete for the limited number of tenured positions, etc. So inculcating a mission of service among students and among staff is truly difficult.

Because of the great difficulty of convincing anyone to devote their lives to service, it has been my wish that policy makers and university administrators set a good example in being more forthcoming in rendering services to the community without asking for returns either of a financial nature or simply in terms of their reputation. This is educating by example. This is the least that we can do.

The University Grants Committee (UGC) has over the years tried to ensure that our publicly funded universities are accountable to the taxpayers. But that should mean that decision makers whose poor decisions lead to poor performance or waste should be held accountable. Perhaps they should take a reprimand, a pay-cut, or a demotion. Strangely, these days we are used to accepting having other people suffer the consequences of someone else's poor decision making.

When the UGC asks universities to "compete" for the surrendered student places, a university will on balance lose the places top-sliced if it cannot convince the UGC its new initiatives are worthy. But when a university loses its places, who suffers because of this? More importantly, can we be sure that the reallocation is more efficient? Even if the reallocation is more efficient, is the gain in efficiency justified by the disruption and the compliance cost of universities trying to compete among one another? The UGC itself needs to be held accountable and explain how the costs are justified by the gains.

Take another example: the Outcome Based Learning initiative. It is certainly a very costly exercise, and the way money devoted to OBL really needs to be carefully examined and audited, to assess if there are indeed any net gains at all. I am aware of university administrators who privately acknowledge that they do not at all endorse the initiative, but have to publicly comply with the UGC's requirements.

The UGC is creating a new culture in the way that it operates. Given that it is a grant-giving agency, no university will openly say no to its policies. It is fostering competition, as if there is not enough competition in Hong Kong. It is also fostering the bidding for mega projects, which are labeled Areas of Excellence, as if smaller projects were not excellent. Outgoing Chairwoman Laura Cha Shih May-lung said HK$1.3 billion will be slashed from the research block grant progressively over nine years and would be handed out competitively in accordance with universities' success in bidding for Research Grants Council (RGC) funding schemes. Universities are now under pressure to pressure their staff to bid for RGC grants, whether or not they need them. Yet not all researchers need grants, and not all projects need grants on the scale of the RGC earmarked grants. Faculty who quietly produce quality research without the need for the bigger grants are seen as undermining the reputation or the finances of the university.

Regrettably, a statement by the UGC Concern Group, which this author has signed, opened with a criticism of the government appointing businessmen to the chairmanship of UGC. I do not endorse that criticism, since there are numerous enlightened businessmen who know better. What I do worry about is rather that the UGC in recent years appears to becoming more and more distant from the actual needs of Hong Kong and of the academic world.

The author is director of the Centre for Public Policy Studies, Lingnan University.

(HK Edition 07/19/2011 page3)