THE resignation of two key members of the Education Commission must be taken seriously. For they are protesting against what they see as a deliberate Government policy of downgrading the importance of what was once a powerful motor of educational reform. At a time when education policy desperately needs clear and forceful direction, the Government can ill afford to sideline the commission.
If, as Professor Arthur Li and Dr Paul Morris have suggested, the commission is being turned into ''a talking shop that does not address any major policy issues which have resource implications'', the Government should come clean and say so. It should explain publicly precisely why it is reducing the commission's role. If, however, the criticism is felt to be unjustified, the Government must still explain clearly why the commission is being steered away from discussion of topics which some of its members have identified as urgent.
To claim, as an anonymous spokesman did yesterday, that there are other bodies which advise ''on issues affecting particular sectors of the education system'' evades the question of why it is not addressing commission members' concerns.
Nor is it enough to say members decided unanimously to change the emphasis of their work. They would not have done so, had they understood they were voting for the commission's emasculation.
It is no secret that commission members are dissatisfied with the way its business is conducted. The commission has long been criticised for its reluctance to release information on its activities and for ignoring public opinion. It has only conducted public consultation on its periodic education reports after their publication.
Nothing of substance has been heard from the commission since the publication of its fifth report in mid-1992. That may be as much a reflection of its secretiveness as its concentration on technical matters. Either way, it is of little help to the territory's students or their teachers - or to parents. As the Government is pledged to greater openness, as well as to improving education, the critics have reason to complain.
