[Education is my second passion in life. It has become so not only because I did not have a very satisfactory experience myself when I was in the schools during the Cultural Revaluation, but also the comparisons I have been able to make while our children grow up in the UK. ]

When I was a child, I used to walk to the school and back twice a day during school terms. It was fun and good exercise except on those rainy or freezing days. Nowadays though, kids are collected by their parents or grandparents for various reasons such as security. In our girls’ school in the UK, the parents always wait in the school courtyard for their kids to come out (up to 11-year olds). It is a good opportunity for the mums to exchange information of what is going on in the school and arrange play-days for their children.

One day, as a few of us were waiting and chatting, a little boy pushed a little girl onto the ground and then run away. What happened next quite amused me - the mother of the boy quickly got hold of her son and brought him straight back to the crying girl. The mum made the boy to stand still and ordered him with such a force that the rest of us could hear perfectly: “You naughty boy! Say sorry to her! Say SORRY right now!” She repeated herself a couple of times until the boy obeyed her and said “Sorry” to the upsetting little girl.

This story shows what good parents and responsible teachers teach on how the children should behave - if they have done something wrong, they should not ever try to run away from their responsibilities. They must admit the wrong doing and say sorry before putting it right.

Amongst the academic editors-in-chief and authors who I have worked with over the years, many of them have high status and are well-known in their fields. Yet whenever they did something wrong by mistake, either with running their journals or writing articles, they would always say “sorry” promptly and then put it right if possible. As for an individual, to have the courage to say “sorry” earns more respect from others. This habit is nursed from early age of a child in good schools as well as at home by responsible parents. It is recognised as a coward act to insist upon something wrong to be right. From very young age, children learn the disciplines of being responsible to what they say and how they behave.

These kinds of different approach and attitude always make me wonder about those terrible acts such as official corruptions and academic cheats happening in my hometown - are they caused by the system itself or the people in the system, or both, maybe?