Comments on the Chief Executive Policy Address
Jocelyn Ching (6) 3A
1. Select two new policy proposals given in the Chief Executive Police Address. They should be related in
two different aspects.
The two new policy proposals I have chosen are ‘Keeping Teaching Resources Up-to-date’ and
the ‘Old Age Allowance’. They belong to the aspect of education and the aspect of social welfare
respectively.(32 words)
2. Summarize the main ideas of each policy proposal.
The main ideas of ‘Keeping Teaching Resources Up-to-date’ are looking into the development
of e-books and promote the use of these new learning resources. And the main ideas of ‘Old Age
Allowance’ are to consider increasing the Old Age Allowance rate to $1000, as well as introducing a
means test, and relaxing the permissible limit of absence.(57 words)
3. Following each policy proposal, provide your own opinion.
I do not support the policy ‘Keeping Teaching Resources Up-to-date’ because I don’t
think promoting the use of e-books is the best way to solve the problem of expensive and
frequently-revised textbooks. This may worsen the eyesight of students as they will always be
looking at the monitor of computer. If the students get used to the e-books, they will become too
reliant on computer technology for their assignments, for example, they will not know how to
calculate some simple mathematic questions as they will all prefer to use calculator. And if the
students use e-books as textbooks, the copyright of those textbook will be easily infringed through
the computer network.
I have some suggestions for the government. I think there are several ways to tackle this
problem of expensive and frequently-revised textbooks. The main cost of a textbook is the paper.
The paper quality of textbooks is very good nowadays. I think there is no need for the textbook to
have such good quality of paper as they are only being used for one year. Therefore, I suggest the
government to enact a law that all textbooks should be made of recycled paper, in such a way that
the price of a textbook can be reduced. And the government could encourage parents to give their
child’s textbooks to his/her siblings, cousins or friends to save money. Also, the bookstore could
exchange the new edition book with the old edition book and give the customers discounts on these
textbooks. Then, the bookstore can sell the old books to some students that are still using the old
edition, furthermore, they could be donated to the poor in rural China or recycle them to make new
ones.
I support the main ideas of ‘Old Age Allowance’——increase the Old Age Allowance
rate to $1000, because there are many poor elderly that relied on the Old Age Allowance for their
daily lives. And they just live on $705 for the whole month. So, they have tough lives. If the
government add the Old Age Allowance to $1000, they can have a better living standard. I support
that the elderly should pass the means test in order to get the Old Age Allowance, since some of
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the elderly are infect rich therefore they can live as usual without the Old Age Allowance. They
should not rely on the money given by the government. If people have the ability, they should try
living their lives on their own expensive.
However, facing the problem of the rapidly increasing population of the elderly, the
government should make sure that there is enough money for the future. Therefore, I think the
government should add tax to the workers whose salary is more than $10,000 a month, for the
future use of the Old Age Allowance. I think the government should offer other social welfare
incentives to all of the elderly, such as medical subsidy and supermarket coupons, to lessen their
anger on those who didn’t pass the means test, and to show respect and concern to all of the
elderly. (513 words)
(All together 602 words)
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