The PRC authorities recognize academic qualifications awarded in Taiwan. Why won't the ROC Ministry of Education reciprocate?
The number of Taiwan students on the mainland is likely to grow exponentially, partly because more and more Taiwan businessmen are going to mainland China for lengthy periods, taking their families with them, and partly because people are becoming increasingly aware of the opportunities for higher education available on the mainland. In light of this, and given that the PRC authorities freely recognize academic qualifications granted by Taiwan's institutions of higher learning, should the ROC government now accredit degrees and diplomas granted by mainland schools?
After five years of research into this question, the Ministry of Education (MOE) drew up a list of seventy-three mainland universities and announced that they would be accredited as of October 1997. Excluded from the list were some 900 institutions of higher education, including all teachers colleges and schools of Western medicine. It was also announced that qualifications involving the study of communist ideology would not be recognized, even if granted by one of the seventy-three approved schools.
Instead of being hailed as a major leap forward, this decision by Wu Jin, the then minister of education, sparked off an episode of Taiwan's recurrent PRC phobia, with such notables as the former director-general of the KMT's Department of Cultural Affairs standing up for ROC President Lee's Go-Slow policy on mainland affairs and criticizing Wu for being too rash. As a result, Wu, an innovative minister who enjoyed much popularity with parents, felt obliged to resign in early 1998, and his plan was thereafter buried by politicians and government officials.
Not surprisingly, Wu Tong-rui, associate dean at Peking University, thinks this is all nonsense. "We accredit all of Taiwan's universities, but Taiwan doesn't treat us the same way," he complains. "Peking University is [mainland] China's top school. It just seems natural for Taiwan schools to accredit us." Shi Jing-huan of Beijing Normal University is even more forthright. "It's stupid to exclude our school from the list, just because we aim to educate future teachers," she says scornfully, pointing out that her university has long enjoyed a reputation for high academic standards. "It's the most important teachers university in [mainland] China. If Taiwan won't accredit us, that's hardly our problem."
A lot of people would agree with her. Last year, Asiaweek magazine conducted a survey of universities in Asia, including Australia and New Zealand. Peking University and National Taiwan University, the island's most prestigious seat of learning, came seventh and eighth respectively in the ranking. No wonder Wu Tong-rui finds it unreasonable of Taiwan to balk at accrediting his school, when Yale and Harvard are happy to do so. "Lots of scholars at Peking University just roll their eyes and say 'So what?' when they hear about the accreditation controversy," says Chen Yu-chun, director of the Institute of American Studies at Taiwan's Chinese Culture University, who is currently teaching in Beijing.
When critics of Wu Jin are asked to justify refusal of accreditation to world-class universities on the mainland, they generally argue that granting it might encourage more Taiwan students to study over there, giving the PRC government ample opportunity to instill them with communist ideology. Andy W. Chang, director of Tamkang University's Institute of China Studies, feels that the PRC's policy on Taiwan affairs is so consistent that they would certainly try to brainwash Taiwanese students. "But I don't think many would fall for it," he says. "This is a straightforward question of choice between two political systems."
Many observers regard the fear of brainwashing as totally unrealistic. They point out that Taiwan is a pluralistic society with an open media, its people are well informed about world events, and most of them have benefited directly or indirectly from its heady mix of freewheeling capitalism and democracy. The ROC government's policy of deterring students from studying in mainland China looks crudely over-protective. Chen Yu-chun has lived in Beijing for eight months, and he thinks that mainland schools would not even bother to try to brainwash Taiwan students. "You might have had reason to worry about that ten years ago," he concedes. "But as the 21st century approaches, and the PRC government is progressively toning down its political ideology, such concerns seem out-of-date."
The other major concern is over the quality of mainland schools; after all, Peking University is only one of roughly 1,030 mainland colleges and universities. Chen is completely in favor of accreditation, but he freely acknowledges that some Taiwan students just fool around and goof off no matter where they study. He therefore thinks that students in that category should not be encouraged to go to third-class mainland schools, continue wasting time, and end up with nothing but a worthless piece of paper.
Chen also feels that if the ROC government really wants to make sure that students learn something in mainland China, it should consider further limiting the number of accredited schools to, for example, thirty-six--approximately half Wu Jin's original number. "At those schools, they could learn something valuable and get degrees that would be a real plus when it came to enrolling in other good schools for further study."
A lesser consideration is whether all of Taiwan's private schools, which are not considered to be as competitive as the island's national colleges and universities, would lose students to mainland schools once they were accredited. This is un likely, because there is an acute shortage of such schools on Taiwan, and besides--"Accreditation of mainland schools is just part of the pressure of internationalization and liberalization on Taiwan," Tamkang's Chang argues. "Taiwan students also study in countries like the United States, Canada, and Australia, so mainland schools would just be part of the competition faced by Taiwan's private schools." He would go further and say that both national and private schools on the island are likely to feel the pinch, and that therefore "they would all have to improve their teaching quality if they wanted to make students stay in Taiwan."
Maybe so--but at present most students shopping around for an education abroad know very little about the mainland educational establishment. For example, how much do students have to pay for tuition at a mainland college? Most Taiwan students would give a knee-jerk answer that it costs very little, but they would be wrong, because the fee scales are different for mainland and Taiwan students, with the latter often forced to pay much more.
And what about living conditions and the quality of colleges in some of the mainland's far-flung regions, which bear little or no resemblance to one another. "If the ROC government is seriously going to consider accrediting mainland schools, at the same time it should in all conscience provide complete and objective information on the mainland's educational environment, to help people make rational choices," Chang says. As yet, there is no sign that such a radical change of attitude might be in the pipeline.
Taiwan students may not be able to have their degrees recognized when they return home, but at least they do have the option of studying on the mainland. At present, neither the PRC nor the ROC government allows mainland college students to attend Taiwan schools.