2007-08-10 13:25
Got an email from a fellow student, Mr. M. He strongly complained the inefficiency of PGSA (Post Graduate Student Association) at HKU. I wrote to support him, and would like to post my reply here, as a continuous essay in my 《也說說我的不屑》series. Since Mr. M is Indian, I have to reply him in English.
Dear Mr. M,
Many thanks for your information!
Yes, I fully agree on your complaints and your arguments. In fact, before I came to HKU, I did hope to join the PGSA operation in my postgraduate period, at least for one year, since I supposed that a university like HKU should have an efficient/devoted official post-gra organization for serving the students, as well as representing our views on many practical issues, both campus ones and social ones, such as the studentship issue you mentioned and others like the reservation of the Queen's Peer, or, the annual candle night on June 4.
I did hope that because I suffered a lot from the official student organizations in PKU, for their little concerns on students and the society, but great concerns on the higher-up officers and themselves -- their initial willing to join the organization is not for serving, but only for a "valuable" record on their CV. I guessed that HKU-PGSA should be different. Unfortunately, I was greatly frustrated after my arrival here. The PGSA performs exactly the same as what I experienced in mainland, and sometimes even worse. Some of my friends told me that actually the PGSA is totally operated by a group of mainland students; later, I also read some evidences (some people's words) on the online forum of CSSA-HKU (Chinese Students and Scholars Association at HKU), saying that the PGSA is "controled" by mainland students, then I can understand. It is also a good explanation on PGSA's little effort to argue for a higher studentship -- believe me, 12500 per month is already a lot for a mainlander, as my monthly net income was 3500 in Beijing when I worked fulltime for an IT company.
A sharp contrast is the student organizations of the undergraduates, such as the student clubs and student union. Although the Hong Kong society is also criticizing the HKU student union these years, as it becomes more and more distant from the social issues and social debates, but only concentrates on trivial daily demands. However, we can still find some meaningful activities held by the undergraduates, for example, the political election debate in HKU campus during the HKSAR leader election period early this year.
In my opinion, there are two reasons for the always absence of PGSA in either the campus life or in the social life. For the former, the attitude and initial willing lead to the inefficiency; for the latter, I would say that the mainland students never participate in the HK society -- although they have the HK ID card, enjoying all the studentship and welfares provided by this society, they care nothing about the people here, some of them even refuse to understand Cantonese.
Best,
Jean
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