Was I the only person a little disappointed to find that among the first wave of "talents" to be invited to cross our newly porous border with the mainland was a fleet of minibus drivers?
I understand the attractions of importing talent, recruiting potential geniuses, attracting the future architects of artificial intelligence with Chinese characteristics, and all that stuff. But minibus drivers?
Well, disappointed or not the government is now accepting applications in a scheme which is supposed to produce 900 mainland minibus drivers, and a further 800 drivers for coaches and cross-border buses.
I do not subscribe to the paranoid (or politically motivated) view that our government has been spooked by the wave of emigration and is now trying every possible means to fill Hong Kong with mainlanders to make up the numbers and replace the ungrateful flown birds.
Clearly a much older syndrome is at work here. Ever since the old colonial days Hong Kong governments have paid diligent lip service to market forces. But they have never plucked up the courage to tell any group of businessmen, however small and modestly important their business may be, that if they are short of labour the solution is to increase wages.
The scheme does not seem a particular safety hazard, although when I was last on the mainland some of the driving was … shall we say exciting? Driving on the wrong side of the road is not a difficult adaptation on one condition: that the vehicle you are driving is appropriate to the new system. The steering wheel needs to be on the other side. A mainland driver in a Hong Kong minibus should be able to adapt very quickly.
We can also take comfort in the thought that there is a test to be passed before you are allowed to drive a minibus. Last week the Standard quoted the Transport Department as reporting that so far six of the imported drivers had taken the test, and four of them had failed.
This is by no means a disgraceful performance. The pass rate for Hong Kong drivers taking the test was only 17 per cent in 2022, slightly lower last year. Clearly the test is quite demanding, and so it should be.
Consequently it was a bit disturbing to read that leaders of the minibus industry expected all the failed drivers to "retake the test" (Hong Kong Taxi and Public Light Bus Association chairman Chow Kwok-keung) or "makeup tests would be arranged in seven days so the drivers can be on the road as soon as possible" (Tse Cheuk-yu, owner of Hop Fat Light Bus).
Just a minute gentlemen. There are basically two theories of tests and examinations, both of which are erroneous. One holds that anyone can pass the test if he works hard enough. This led to large numbers of Chinese man spending many long years in vain attempts to pass the old civil service exam.
The other regards the test as as measurement of innate and unchanging qualities. So England subjected 12-year-olds to an 11+ examination which sorted them into grammar school sheep and secondary modern goats, ostensibly for the rest of their school careers. This was not a success. My university roommate had failed it. The Scholastic Aptitude Test in the US is supposed to be similarly static, but research has revealed that students can achieve a worthwhile improvement in their scores simply by taking it twice.
So in the real world we have to accept that success in any examination or test depends on at least two things: the amount of work the candidate puts in and the qualities which he or she possesses which are relevant to the activity being tested.
From this point of view the existence of a 17 per cent pass rate for the minibus drivers' test is rather reassuring. Clearly there are some people who should not be minibus drivers, and the test is successfully excluding them from the profession.
We lay people may not be sure exactly what the problem might be. Is there some subtle requirement for a kind of hand/eye coordination not found in pedestrian life, a feel for machinery, an unflappable personality?
Whatever it may be, I trust the examiners will not be swayed by the industry's urge to get warm bodies into driving seats. When I was teaching there was an unstated expectation that we would try to ensure somehow that students who were spending large sums in the hope of getting a particular qualification would get what they thought they were paying for: the degree or diploma at the end of the course.
This had no ill effects because employers had plenty of evidence to go on (the transcript, or a degree classification) if they were interested in the educational attainments of potential recruits. No doubt medical or flying schools are more careful, or so one hopes.
Driving tests are an important contribution to the safety of road users. Tests for the drivers of buses and other large vehicles are particularly important. They should be rigorous and that implies that some people will fail. One or two resits may be acceptable for those hampered by nerves, language problems or an unusually stringent examiner. But not everyone can be a minibus driver.
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