Public Bidding (2)
‘Outsourcing.’
The power contained within a single word is immense.
Just by letting the word cross my mind, the tasks I needed to tackle began to surface as if they had been waiting for their turn.
Aiden kept his mouth shut, tapping his fingertips against the desk as he organized his thoughts.
Some might ask why I’m making it so complicated when I could just hand out the work, but it’s not that simple. Especially when it comes to government-led initiatives.
Since this is the first attempt at outsourcing, I need to establish a proper foundation so that managing the increasing number of outsourced contracts in the future will be easier.
‘It’s not just anything; it’s an education issue, which makes it even more critical.’
They say education is a hundred-year plan. It means it takes a year to grow crops, ten years to grow trees, and a hundred years to cultivate talent.
But a hundred years is too long.
For a Korean addicted to the "hurry-hurry" culture, presenting something that only shows results after a century is hardly attractive.
That is why Korean education eventually found its own methods. It’s a system of outsourcing outside of public education, represented by private academies and tutoring; a reward system based on endless exams and rankings; and finally, a lecturer market where success is guaranteed with annual salaries reaching tens of millions of won just by being good at teaching.
Aiden intended to pick and choose only the parts that could be applied to the North.
“The most important things are reading, writing, and calculating, right?”
“Yes. While other subjects would be nice, those two are the absolute basics. I think it would be fine to introduce the rest later.”
“Good. Kalisa?”
“Yes.”
“We decided to send lower-level officials to the villages near the Lord’s Castle during the winter to educate the residents, didn’t we?”
“We did start a small pilot program.”
“Excellent. Let’s form a new team centered around the officials involved in that project and begin a full-scale literacy campaign. Oh, there’s no need for the government to prepare all the textbooks or teaching methods. I plan to outsource the actual teaching.”
“Outsourcing. That sounds good.”
Kalisa nodded immediately.
“Excuse me, Administrative Officer. By outsourcing, do you mean you intend to entrust the entire teaching process to external institutions?”
Roland, who had been silent, asked with sparkling eyes. He seemed interested.
“Not everything, just the act of teaching itself. We will set the education period and frequency. We’ll also hold exams at the end of each term. Naturally, the Department of Education and Enlightenment will have to create those exams, right?”
“So you intend to evaluate them based on the results of those exams!”
“Exactly. Both the students and the instructors.”
“The instructors as well?”
“Of course. That’s the only way to generate some enthusiasm, isn’t it? It won’t work if only the students get report cards. The instructors also need to understand that the grades of the students they teach are their own grades, so they’ll be passionate about their classes.”
“Enthusiasm... but Administrative Officer. If you determine performance evaluations based on student grades every term, the instructors’ motivation might drop significantly.”
“I’m going to introduce incentives.”
“?”
The three adjutants looked at Aiden simultaneously.
“Instructors who reach their targets will receive extra pay, and the top few instructors overall will receive additional bonuses. If I show them that they can change their lives just by teaching students well, I think that will be enough to offset the stress of performance evaluations.”
Even so, there might be some instructors who still feel stressed, but—
‘Well, is any other job different?’
How many crazy people in the world are so happy because their job perfectly matches their aptitude? Everyone just endures the hard and difficult parts. In that sense, Aiden was a fairly happy madman. He was a human who felt the most liberation when working.
“I would like to take charge of this, Administrative Officer.”
Roland, who had never acted proactively before, clenched his fist with a motivated expression and tapped his chest, asking for trust.
“Are you confident?”
“Of course!”
“We’re going to proceed as quickly as possible, so submit the plan and prepare for the public bidding immediately. It’s okay to start small; the priority is to just get started.”
There are tasks that must be prepared flawlessly from the start, and there are tasks where it is more necessary to start quickly, even if a bit rough, and improve them gradually.
In Aiden’s judgment, the literacy issue was the latter.
‘No matter how important education is, I need to increase the number of people who can read and write first so this territory can actually function!’
To make good use of the limited population pool, there was no choice but to raise the level of the residents.
Still, since it was the first competitive bidding case in the Lord’s Castle, I was a bit worried about what would happen if no one applied.
The time was tight, and even among the interested residents, there was so little time to prepare that it was effectively a gamble from Aiden’s perspective.
‘Still, we can’t start in the spring.’
The reason for the rush was the issue of the seasons. Unlike 21st-century Korea, where the season doesn’t matter much for learning, the number of students in the North would inevitably plummet once spring arrived.
Since everyone would be busy farming, gathering herbs, and tending to livestock, even children who could walk would be mobilized for work once the weather warmed up, so it was natural that interest would wane.
Therefore, the first literacy classes had to start within the winter.
“Did all the companies that submitted documents arrive?”
“Yes! All five of them are here!”
Roland answered with a proud face. Fortunately, five companies had applied.
Aiden had been even more worried about no-shows because he had planned a blind evaluation—something that didn’t exist in this era—to show that he would judge fairly.
“That’s a relief. I was so worried about what I’d do if they just submitted the documents and gave up.”
“Shall we go? I will escort you.”
“Forget it. If I go, I’ll just be a distraction. The officials from the Department of Education and Enlightenment will handle it well enough on their own. I’ll be satisfied just watching from the outside.”
“Still, if you could just say a word of encouragement...”
“Encouragement, my foot.”
The location where the interviews were taking place was the first floor of the Lord’s Castle. It was one of the rooms previously used as an office by lower-level officials.
The reason he deliberately chose the Lord’s Castle instead of the Administrative Welfare Center for the interview site was to show how much the Administrative Officer cared about this matter.
“...We can mobilize a total of seven instructors! Five can teach reading and writing, and two can teach arithmetic.”
“Are they all former officials?”
“Yes! They are all former lower-level officials who retired before the current Administrative Officer took office.”
Aiden, who had settled in the room next to where the interviews were taking place, quietly leaned his head against the wall and focused on the sounds coming through.
‘Retired officials. That’s good.’
Although their experience in education might be limited, retired officials would have a certain level of life experience, so there would actually be many advantages in the education sector.
“We consist of three instructors. Although the number is small, all three can teach both reading and arithmetic, so we will do the work of six!”
“This group is all merchants.”
“Yes. But they are people whose aptitude is more suited to teaching than to commerce. They have all been doing new-hire training within their merchant groups.”
This group seemed to be using the fact that they were experienced, despite their small numbers, as their sales point.
‘Experienced people, that’s important.’
It is common knowledge that teaching others is harder than studying oneself, and it is a settled theory that someone who is good at studying isn’t necessarily good at teaching, so having someone who has actually taught others is a huge advantage.
‘If only there were more of them, they’d be worth picking unconditionally. Tsk.’
However, given that the local talent pool was desperate, it seemed that three was all there were of such experienced people.
With this, it would be impossible to operate classrooms in every village even if they ran them for a year.
“The Education Department staff are going to have a headache.”
“Still, they will do well. They have taught in the field themselves, so they know better than anyone what is needed. Oh, then, Administrative Officer.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be going now!”
“......?”
“I’m the fifth candidate. Hehe.”
...Blind evaluation, did I do this for nothing?
Aiden let out a dry laugh as he watched the back of Roland, who was running toward the interview room, excited.
[NOTIFICATION: FIRST LITERACY LITERACY OUTSOURCING BIDDING]
Status: Ongoing
Applicants: 5
***
“You didn’t say anything about that!”
“Do I have to say everything for you to know? Choose quickly. Either quit being an adjutant, or give up the bid!”
The afternoon when all the interviews were finished. Aiden, who rarely visited the working-level staff because he didn’t want to burden them, had personally called them up to confirm the results of the first outsourced company selection. As a result, he found out that the top priority was Roland’s company and had come straight to the office to force a choice.
“Does this make sense? What will people say? They’ll say it’s all rigged!”
“Rigged? Administrative Officer, didn’t you see the scorecards? Our company deserves the highest score in terms of both personnel and experience...”
“Public officials are prohibited from holding dual jobs! Do I have to point out the obvious? You’ve even been an adjutant in another territory, how can you violate such a basic rule?”
“Ah, are officials in the North prohibited from holding dual jobs?”
“...Huh?”
Roland blinked, looking as if he truly didn’t know.
“Not really, is it?”
The answer to Roland’s question came from Jamie.
Aiden’s head snapped around at that absurd answer. No, what kind of nonsense is this?
“Ah, is that so?”
“Yeah. But you, can you hold a dual job? You won’t have the time.”
“Don’t worry about that. The instructors I’m bringing in this time are all kids who studied at the academy with me. They’re kids who did private tutoring because they didn’t fit in with official life, so there’s not much for me to do.”
“Hehe. Then you’re just a figurehead.”
The two, who had become unexpectedly close after the hellish week of closed-door training—no, closed-door report writing—chatted and giggled. Aiden was the only one left out.
“Jamie.”
“Yes?”
“Say that again.”
“Which one? Figurehead?”
“No. Before that.”
“Before that... dual jobs?”
“Yeah, that.”
Jamie looked like he didn’t quite understand why he was asking, but he answered anyway.
“Uh... Officials usually hold dual jobs, don’t they? But since they have to work at the government office during the day, most of them just help their families with farming on their days off. In our North, officials have so much work, don’t they? Hehe.”
“I suppose. Even in the Lontes territory right next door, there are many officials who open shops and do business, but there are certainly fewer cases like that here.”
“There’s no time, no time.”
“Hey, if you make time, it’ll come out. More than that, the North pays officials’ salaries regularly, right? They don’t fall behind. Isn’t that why the will for dual jobs isn’t that high?”
“Well, maybe. Before Aiden took office, there were many guys who went hunting during work hours.”
“See.”
“Hehe.”
The more he heard, the more absurd it was.
‘So, dual jobs for officials are the norm in other regions?’
What kind of disorganized mess is that?