Last Friday, the Open University of Hong Kong(OUHK) announced name change to Hong Kong Metropolitan University. University President Wong Yuk-shan explained the name change is due to the fact “quite a number of local and overseas people misunderstand that the OUHK only offers remote education and part-time courses, which causes the students and teaching staff inconvenience in looking for jobs and taking part in academic exchange respectively”. He also mentioned the name Hong Kong Metropolitan University suggests the college is situated in a metropolitan city…evincing a mixture of arts, science and business courses in the college and its future development not confined by its name”. It seems what President Wong implied is the advancement of the university is limited by its name, and the institution would be promising with the name change.

Honestly, in terms of fame and image, the OUHK is eclipsed by a host of other institutions of higher learning. The school has even been held up to ridicule online for long: “whales(鯨魚) are not fish(魚); open universities are not universities.” It is assuredly an issue that the dissatisfactory reputation besets the teaching staff and students in a snobbish society that puts stock in fame. It is also unfair to the fresh graduates who are queried about their degrees and whose personal efforts put in studying for years are negated. In fact, there has always been little correlation between a college and the competence of its graduates, and personal factors should not be ignored. For the oblivious, Chief Executive Carrie Lam, currently spurned at by Hong Kong people, was turned out by the University of Hong Kong, while Joshua Wong, a social movement leader acknowledged by many Hong Kong people, is an OUHK graduate.

“Not to judge a person on his/her alma mater” is not something the OUHK can instill in Hong Kong people by itself but what the Hong Kong society needs to learn en masse. Nonetheless, encountering the predicament the teaching staff and students are in, are the university authorities really convinced the name change would make an altogether different impression on the general public? The difficulties the teaching staff and students have are solved? If the name that misleads the general public into deeming it just a night school is really an issue, then why are people not mistaken in thinking there is only a department of Chinese at the Chinese University of Hong Kong? Why is the capacity of the School of Business and Management of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, which ranks high worldwide, queried? How come a university of “science and technology” offers “business” courses”? Obviously, the key does not rest with the name. Take Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America. Though it is not even named “university”, it is internationally renowned. A diamond will never lose its shine. As long as the teaching quality is guaranteed, no one cares about the name. What the OUHK should work hard on is endeavoring to enhance its teaching quality and improve the supporting facilities, which is the only way to take the school to the next level and make a good impression on the general public.

To provide a permanent solution, the OUHK did not put forward any reform blueprint. However, before everything else, it introduced a name change program that does not get to the root, nor does it effect a temporary solution to the problem. It just ended up being derided collectively by netizens and its alumni. Nevertheless, meritocrats who neither get at the root nor effect a temporary solution to problems but just fish for fame do not only exist in the OUHK but are predominant in the Hong Kong administration. Name change of the OUHK is only a novel testament to the fact that the people at the helm in Hong Kong, from top management at universities to high echelon personnel in the government, attach importance to fame rather than effectiveness.

Take Hong Kongers’ and the international community’s faith in “one country., two systems” plunging into the new low over the past year. The Hong Kong government has not sought for a way to get at the root and turn the tide. Instead, on the one hand, it has kept sabotaging “one country, two systems”; on the other hand, it said propaganda about “one country., two systems” has to be intensified. It seems that “one country., two systems” and the rule of law will materialize after they are said a million times. Civil servants have been arrested one by one for participating in social movement, but the Hong Kong government has never reflected upon why functionaries from within the system readily go for it at the expense of their personal prospects. Instead, it is going to launch an oath-taking program, assuming that an oath is equivalent to fealty. The Pan-Pearl River Delta economic belt has been built for years. There must be a reason why a lot of Hong Kong people still resist going up there, but the Hong Kong government is not keen on understanding what has been worrying Hong Kong people. Instead, it reckons the place would make an altogether different impression on Hong Kong people after it is glossed over with the name Greater Bay Area. But so long as the actual state of affairs remains what it is, no matter how it is named and said, degradation of the legal system is what it literally means; civil servants are still discontent with the government; Hong Kong people are still resistant to the Chinese Communist Party. Seeking fame instead of effectiveness is not the way to solve any problems.

(Lam Hoi, journalist)

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