Good policy making cannot be achieved without a good understanding of the realities on the ground, on knowing what is actually achievable
A policy that looks good in theory, but cannot be implemented, is a failure
And there have been too many of such bad policies, where the consequences are very serious, but the policymakers who made them are not held legally accountable
Just to name a few of the more prominent ones
1. Pre-covid, every school carried out annual exercises to ask students if they have computers at home, and have an elearning day. But when covid struck, it exposed the reality that computers at home might be shared by many family members, and exposed that the backend servers cannot support so many users being online at the same time. On paper, this contingency policy looks good, but was actually not implementable in reality.
2. Policy on vaping and smoking related offence.
MOE and
HPB for years, treated the issue lightly and insisted on using the 'soft approach'. Sending students who were caught vaping for counselling, and not charging anyone in court until the students have clocked a few records. The supplier of these vapes (the sellers, and the people who helped students procure vapes) were not punished. Now the vape situation is out of control. Even primary school kids are vaping like nobody's business.
3. PLD policy. Intention is good, to let children acquire IT skills. But a lot of children lack self discipline. Some even went to bypass the device management settings to allow playing of games. The cases of cyber addiction is becoming more severe, and with many parents working, and who are also unable to enforce discipline at home, a lot of parents have written in to the papers to complain on this issue.
There are a slew of other bad policies. Probably drawn up by people who lack actual school experience.