“`
Although the Education Department of the Union has already established a relatively complete educational system in Revival City and Weixing City, covering various aspects such as vocational education, technical education, and comprehensive education, it is still too early, and children receiving education can’t possibly grow up overnight.
For adult education, there could only be short-term, high-intensity knowledge training before they were hurriedly sent out to make their mark on the workplace.
But after all, having some “talent” available is better than before.
Moreover, these cultivated talents needed some positions to demonstrate their abilities.
The vacancies created by these farms in the Beiqing Valley Region were just right.
Even Gu Hang had sent many of those top students that his mother had previously arranged for him, putting them to work in the Beiqing Valley Province.
By that time, Gu Hang felt his mother really had some good ideas.
He couldn’t quite trust these people.
Given the situation on Rage Owl Star, where would you find a hundred highly educated ‘alien university students’?
Lack of trust didn’t matter; after all, they were talents, so just deal with them as you see fit.
Gu Hang couldn’t resist this temptation either.
You couldn’t just waste them, could you?
Time to get to work.
If you want to be entrusted with important tasks, it wasn’t impossible, start from the grassroots and work your way up.
If someone was truly reliable, Gu Hang wouldn’t mind having a proper chat and recruiting them under his command.
In summary, these methods had temporarily filled the gaps at those basic farms in the Beiqing Valley Province that were left without managers.
While discussing this, Osenia also took the opportunity to inform Gu Hang about the current priorities of the Education Department.
Currently, the educational work of the Union seemed to be going quite well. A series of educational systems from elementary to middle to university had been established in the crucial Twin Cities Region.
Union Citizens, according to different ranks, could enjoy varying degrees of free education and subsidies.
The first six years comprised the compulsory education phase: the children of citizens above E5 rank were free; to encourage enrollment, after admission, the rank of the children themselves would be E2 or E3, meaning additional benefits to reduce the pressure of upbringing.
Those of higher ranks could get free education at the middle school level.
Beyond middle school, students’ good performances in school could directly lead to rank promotions.
Normally, people only receive the E5 rank after reaching adulthood and being allocated a job; however, if students performed extremely well and were outstanding, they might acquire a higher rank while still in school, which clearly provided great help for them when leaving school and entering society.
The so-called university level referred to the Comprehensive Academy, Technical Academy, and Loyal Heir Academy. Here, ranks didn’t matter: education did come with fees, but essentially, students in university were not lower than E6 rank, and their allowances were almost enough to cover the expenses.
Moreover, top graduates from various middle schools, particularly the best ones, could receive even higher subsidies.
The thresholds for advancing from elementary to middle, and middle to university, all hinged on examinations.
The three major academies also practiced a policy of easy admission but strict graduation, making it not easy to graduate.
Even though the three major academies were taking on a lot of adult education work, the diplomas were still granted according to different levels. Adult education had its own certificates—of course, if you could pass the regular exams, you could also obtain a standard certificate.
In any case, everything was considered for issuing ABCD four-level certificates, based on exams, in-school performance, and practical results.
Now, students from various schools—whether they were just middle school graduates who didn’t get into university or those who received adult education in middle school—were being eagerly sought after by all sectors of society.
“`
Enterprises and factories are competing for them, and government units are too.
Even the military wants in on the action. The Military Administration Department under Tadeusz also needs a lot of civilian military officers.
The three major academies are expanding their scale, and in addition to that, the primary and secondary school systems are also spreading outwards.
For now, the Ministry of Education and Culture has started to implement the primary-secondary education system in some of the larger settlements outside the Twin Cities. For example, Beigu City, and many other settlements with around two hundred thousand people in the Central Province outside the Twin Cities, with a population of two million.
And the long-term goal is to have primary school institutions cover every settlement of Union Citizens; to have secondary school institutions cover every urban level region.
Gu Hang nodded frequently as he listened.
Perhaps it was because of the ideologies he had even before his transmigration, education held a very high importance in his mind. He hoped the Union could produce more and more talent, even if not all of them were of great vision and grand strategy, as long as they could shine in their respective positions.
Undoubtedly, the improvement of the population’s quality would lead to an increase in productivity.
After Osenia, it was Jason Morgan’s turn to speak.
This provincial leader was about to present his report card.
“…We will reform the assessment methods of the grassroots farms.”
“Production targets will still be the most important aspect. We will optimize this by setting three benchmark lines based on the farms’ population, arable area, and the number of agricultural machines: passable, excellent, challenge. The corresponding planned production targets will fluctuate along these lines, but they should not deviate wildly from reality with inflated production plans.”
“We will significantly increase the penalties for not meeting standards; the rewards for achieving excellent targets will be quite significant; however, the incentive to go from excellent to challenging targets will be reduced. And rewards will be more directed to individuals who complete production rather than the managers.
In this way, we hope to require the farms to meet basic production targets, encourage overproduction, but not completely force everyone into a cutthroat environment.”
“Apart from production targets, we will also include citizen satisfaction in the assessment criteria. Grassroots managers will need to improve citizen satisfaction while fulfilling production plans, otherwise their assessments will be negatively affected.”
“In the appointment of grassroots managers, we are also ready to pilot a reform. Instead of being appointed solely by the upper government, we will offer several candidates who will present their policies, plans, and intended actions to the farm residents for them to choose from.”
“Overall, we hope that by giving the public the power to make reverse selections and by caring about citizen satisfaction, we can increase the accountability of grassroots officials to the public and reduce oppression and corruption events.”
“We are also aware that citizens may have unreasonable demands; it’s possible that dissatisfaction votes could be used to blackmail grassroots officials, preventing the farm from fulfilling its production targets; it could also cause efficient officials to lose out to those who are more eloquent and better at campaigning…”
“There are still many problems with the plan, but on the whole, it should be an improvement over the past situation.”
“In terms of practical assessment, the provincial Civil Affairs Bureau, Development Bureau, and Production Bureau will develop more comprehensive plans to supervise the actions of grassroots officials and set more reasonable objectives. They will also be mindful of the pitfalls and issues I mentioned before.”
…
A document was spread out in front of Jason Morgan as he calmly explained how he would proceed if he continued to serve as the leader of Beiqing Valley Province.
Gu Hang was listening attentively, and from time to time, he would ask questions about certain details as Morgan explained.
There were many areas where Morgan was prepared; he would expound and clarify, but there were also aspects he hadn’t fully thought through. He didn’t get annoyed or nervous, instead, he would ask Gu Hang and the other two high-ranking Union officials present if there were better solutions.
At the end of the discussion, Gu Hang made a decision:
“There are indeed many potential problems, but overall, it sounds like an improvement from before. Let’s go ahead and test it out, see what happens, and then tackle any problems that arise.”
Hearing the Governor say this, Jason Morgan felt a sudden wave of relief.
It seemed he had passed.
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Sorry, I just realized that I forgot to schedule the chapter I finished writing last night…