Keep Calm & Lead On

On September 9, 2020, high school students from every grade level voted for their 2020-2021 General Council (GenCo) officers. Students on campus gathered together to watch the election videos whereas the students overseas had to view it individually through their computers.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many members of the AISG community were unable to return to China, and as a result, the election was held through monitors. Regardless of whether candidates were on campus or overseas, every candidate was responsible for filming a 2-3-minute election video to be showcased in school or sent out to overseas students.

The voting procedure also underwent significant changes. To establish fair competition, the anonymous nature of voting was lost in order to prevent double-voting issues, as all votes were submitted through an online platform named “Microsoft Forms.”

Hyun A K., the newly elected GenCo 9 vice president, says that her first online election went fairly “smoothly.” However, she added that “I had some technical difficulties that made me retake my speech video a few times.” Despite this, she thought that there were many advantages as well, such as being able to practice thoroughly before recording the video, resulting in a “much higher quality speech with less error[s] than if I were to do it physically.”

Henny L., who has won his place as the GenCo 10 secretary, highlighted the difficulties he faced while preparing for the election, commenting “As I prefer talking in-person, recording a video of my speech was one of the biggest challenges. A slight mistake made me retake the whole video!” He also praised the candidates who ran for the election overseas for “overcoming the handicap of not being able to meet and interact with other members of the grade.”

The virtual method of hosting elections is nothing new. Last semester, when people were still in quarantine and school resumed virtually, students were granted access the election videos via email and voted in the same format on Microsoft Form for their 2020-2021 high school executive council (ExCo) officers.

Founded in 1981, AISG is the first international school in South China, offering an international curriculum to its students. Guided by Western learning values and principles, AISG places great importance on nurturing “future-ready” individuals, even amid the pandemic and hybrid learning.