New Hong Kong civil service training school to help create a ‘global vision and strong ethos’
- New Civil Service College head says main job is to get more resources so students can learn leadership skills and world affairs
- Lack of staff and weak structure main problems at civil service training centre, new head Oscar Kwok says
The main objective of Hong Kong’s new Civil Service College is not to foster patriotism among government staff, but to make training more structured as well as give them a sense of duty and a stronger global vision, the head of the institute has said.
Former deputy police commissioner Oscar Kwok Yam-shu emphasised that to enforce Beijing’s policy of “patriots administering Hong Kong”, the college’s priorities also included teaching and assessing civil servants on national identity, security and constitutional affairs, so that they could be trusted to work in the administration.
Yet, the seasoned trainer warned that patriotic education was “destined to fail” if it just stayed at a rational or intellectual level, and was not elevated to the emotional level to include elements such as personal sharing to touch government employees.
Kwok also said his primary role as the college head was to fight for more resources to build a broader educational framework, so civil servants at different levels could learn more about leadership and international affairs.
Hong Kong civil servants brace for shake-up under John Lee’s reform
“Geopolitical developments would affect people’s lives and the city’s governance, so the civil service needs to have a stronger global vision, and be more sensitive and knowledgeable about international politics,” he said on Wednesday.
“But my biggest obvious difficulty is to grapple with the lack of manpower, lack of structure in the college and the acquisition of resources will be my first priority.”
Kwok, 57, who ran the Foundation Training Centre of the Hong Kong Police College between 2007 and 2010 and was a deputy police commissioner from 2019 until he retired in April, was appointed as the first head of the Civil Service College in June and took office last month.
The launch of the Civil Service College last December and the appointment of Kwok were seen by critics as an attempt to make government employees more patriotic and dedicated to supporting the administration’s work in the wake of 2019’s social unrest.
Dozens of government employees were among those arrested three years ago. Some young civil servants also set up a union and organised a strike to protest against the administration’s policies.
The pro-establishment camp has since appealed to the administration to remove disloyal elements from among the city’s 180,000 civil servants.
But Kwok denied the college would be used to purge the civil service and highlighted that the facility was proposed by former chief executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor in her 2017 policy address, before the months-long protests erupted.
“Its objective was to construct a … college which can support training needs of the entire civil service, so that it can maximise its ability to serve the community in the best way possible,” he said.
Kwok said that, apart from teaching civil servants about the mainland’s constitution and security laws, he hoped to invite guest speakers to talk about their work, as well as organise trips to Guangdong and other provinces so local government workers could see the country’s progress and nurture a sense of national identity.
Kwok also dismissed suggestions that some civil servants might be unwilling to attend the college’s courses.
He said the city’s civil service was recognised overseas as highly efficient, but effective training would further help staff to perform their duties “in the best way possible”.
“The average civil servants should realise that in order for them to stay ahead of the curve, in order for them to develop themselves, along with the needs of society, there is always a need to receive training,” he said.
Top Hong Kong advisers disappoint unions with 2.5 per cent civil service pay rise
The college’s predecessor, the Civil Service Training and Development Institute, was set up in the 1960s to train British civil servants and teach them Chinese languages such as Cantonese.
After Hong Kong was handed back to mainland rule, the institute gradually reduced in size and now only has about 130 staff.
Kwok said he was surprised by the college’s limited manpower and that it was “a mere fraction” of the size of the Police College, which serves about 28,000 officers.
“The current manpower the Civil Service College has was mainly dedicated to the provision of training, which was relevant at the time … It lacks coherence and the ability to actually be a robust effort to produce the result that the current civil service college intends to achieve,” he explained.
Kwok said that the police’s emphasis on a strong sense of duty and continuous education were aspects of training that should be copied in the civil service.
He added the police had an “almost obsessive focus on the development of mindset … members do not treat their job as a job merely, it is actually a duty, something that implies there will be personal sacrifices in the execution of duty.”
“The second aspect … is the insistence on continuous training throughout an officer’s career,” he said.
New Hong Kong civil servants school to ‘focus on national security awareness’
But Kwok denied that he would introduce “anything that is police specific” or try to copy the police training model in the civil service.
“I don’t think I have shown any tendency to say, ‘OK, the police training is the way, and therefore you will all become semi-police officers’. No, I’ve no such intentions,” he said.
But Kwok said: “I still think that any training system, provided it’s meritorious, should be considered for adoption in the civil service.”
He added that there was a misconception that police training emphasised “absolute obedience” and insisted that the Civil Service College did not plan to churn out people conditioned to follow orders.
