A Glimpse of the Education Industry

Overheard from the next table in an eatery:

“… proposal to the foundation …”

“… anti-gambling … what the fxck …”

“… environmental … recycling …”

“… sports, including field hockey, basketball …”

“… QEF … there is a powerpoint presentation … fxck …”

“… Innovation and Technology Fund …”

“… Social innovation Fund … fxck …”

“… Mr. Wong, from our side, was a graduate of PolyU from the 90s …”

“… from your side …”

“… when you go to a nursing home …”

“… make a video … I don’t know … I can imagine …”

“… to organize an event …”

“… out of the 10 million dollars …”

From the conversation coming from the 3 men at the table, I surmised that two of them are teachers from a secondary school.  The third is from some company working with the school on a proposal to some foundation for funding on some education development project.  

The conversation covered several aspects of the proposal.  Such as presenting the track record of the company (and the school) in education development projects, how to address the concerns of the funding agency/foundation, how to put together a budget for the proposal, …

I was struck by the wide range of projects that the company claims to have done.  For an organization to be good in some area, it has to invest a significant amount of manpower, time, and money in the area.  A university has many departments that specialise in specific disciplines, such as computer science, electrical engineering, social work, etc., but a university is huge with thousands of staff.  It is difficult to imagine a company that provides educational services to secondary schools to have such a wide range of expertise and be good at them all. What kind of service does the school think it is getting?  To extrapolate a little further, what level of quality can one expect from a project provided by companies such as these?

I was also struck by the amount of foul language that this man used.  Not from the teachers, I must add - their speech were civil.  The context does not require the man to use such language.  Why does he have to do it.  It has been said that sometimes people use foul language because they do not have the language to express the strength and subtlety of the emotion that they wish to express.  Or are just too lazy to make the effort to find the right language.  Is that what it is?  In any case it does not inspire a lot of confidence.