Emergency Alert System: A Case Study of Empowering Students to Critically Review Government Programmes

On 10 Mar 2022, almost every resident in Hong Kong with a mobile phone received a bilingual text message that Queen Elizabeth Hospital had been converted into a designated Covid-19 facility through an Emergency Alert System (EAS) that cost 150 million Hong Kong dollars to build. This poster reports a General Education course at a university in Hong Kong that teaches students how to critically review the programmes and projects of the HKSAR government and present their policy recommendations in the letters to the editor section of the South China Morning Post, an English newspaper of record in the city. Using EAS as an example, this poster illustrates the 5 steps taken by the students to investigate EAS and pressure the government to better serve the community: 1) Review the gray literature; 2) Request information from the HKSAR government; 3) Study the overseas practices and academic literature; 4) Publish a letter to the editor in SCMP; 5) Engage the Legislative Council. It is argued that this model empowers university students to voice their concerns on public policy matters and ensures their views will be taken seriously by the government staff.