Taiwan Today

Increasingly loud calls for social justice in Taiwan led to the lifting of martial law in 1987. The oppressive regime was instituted by the Kuomintang (KMT) 38 years earlier when it lost the civil war to Chinese communists and fled to Taiwan, establishing a dictatorial government on the island. Similar social movements on the part of disenfranchised aborigines, women and laborers and the push for democratization in the 1980s and 1990s are widely recognized as continuing a rebirth of interest in Taiwanese literary, historical and cultural traditions in the 1970s.

For many of the social and political activists who considered education of the younger generation crucial for their vision of a new culture and lifestyle, the hegemony of Sino-centric traditions and the conservative, totalitarian approach to education were primary targets for more localized, pluralistic and hopefully happier learning. In 1994, headed by Lee Yuan-tseh, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry and then president of Academia Sinica, the Commission on Educational Reform was established by the Executive Yuan, and its educational reform proposals were approved in 1998 by the government. Since then, a new system for elementary and high school curricula, textbooks and admission, among other things, has been gradually taking shape.

Continuous Revolution

Educational reform has been a hot topic in Taiwan in the print and broadcast media ever since. As a process that requires cooperation and understanding among policy makers, academics, teachers, parents and students, reform has been reviewed time and again. For social activists like Ding Jhih-ren, director of the Educational Reform Association of Taiwan, it hinges on the opening of a closed system that once swore allegiance to political authorities and was a parasite on the bureaucracy. For teachers like Wu Chung-tai, president of the National Teachers' Association of the ROC, reform is largely a movement toward a more normal state of educational professionalism. For scholars like Chang Chien-chen, chair of the National Taiwan Normal University's Department of Education, national education policy in the last decade has followed two major principles--localization and globalization.

Chang points out that the trend of educational localization started in the 1980s when politicians from the then opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) were elected as magistrates and mayors in several counties and cities. They began to allocate more resources to learning mother tongues and local cultures at elementary and junior high schools, which fall under the jurisdiction of local governments. In 1997, chiefly under direction of Tu Cheng-sheng, a member of Academia Sinica who specializes in ancient Chinese history and who is the current minister of education, the government launched a program in all junior high schools called "Knowing Taiwan"--a term implying that Taiwanese students did not start learning about their homeland until then--which focused on teaching Taiwan's history, geography and social development.

Taiwanese or Chinese?

Now, instead of learning about Taiwan as just one of the 35 provinces of China or as an island far from the center of Chinese civilization, students learn about Taiwan from the historical and cultural perspectives of the country itself. Among other things, under new guidelines for high-school history textbooks, Taiwan's history has been recast as one of three major sections alongside that of China and the rest of the world.

Chang points out that, from the educational point of view, it is true that Taiwanese children need to know more about their homeland, but the methodology needs reconsideration. "Now Taiwanese history, geography, culture and languages tend to be taught just for specific knowledge," he says, "which could develop little emotional attachment in students and little connection to their everyday lives." He suggests that, instead of standing as individual subjects, knowledge of Taiwan could be taught in association with existing branches of learning. For one thing, teachers could use Taiwanese languages such as Holo--understood by many children--to teach math or social science.

Chang thinks that Taiwanese identity has been quite solid among younger generations. "Now few Taiwanese students in elementary and high schools would say they're Chinese," he says. "Even if they do, they would also say they're Taiwanese." However, he is somewhat worried about the localization, or de-Sinification, trends in education that tend to skip China in order to connect Taiwan directly to the world--a result of educational globalization that he thinks is little more than emphasis on learning of and teaching in English--and could cause tension between ethnic groups that embrace different concepts about Taiwan and China.

For Wu Chung-tai, a junior high school teacher of Chinese language and literature, sometimes the so-called de-Sinification--supposedly supported by a pro-independence government--is actually an amendment to previous distortions. One of the hottest debates about de-Sinification, for example, centers on the culling of ancient Chinese texts in favor of modern literature in colloquial Chinese in language textbooks. In addition to the much discussed proportion of ancient or modern literary texts, Wu believes that the previous choice of ancient Chinese texts is a bigger problem. "Some excellent texts have been excluded just because they're anti-war and could therefore be harmful to people's morale against Communist enemies for example," he says. "And some inferior texts by authors such as the late President Chiang Kai-shek have been included."

More Professional Teachers

Ding Jhih-ren says that the natural development toward greater exploration of local traditions and environments is not necessarily connected to the political ideology implied by de-Sinification. "Why should knowing more about a river or a rice mill near one's school have political connotations?" he asks. Courses on such local color rely heavily on materials compiled by teachers at local schools rather than something hammered out for all students in the country. One of the greatest achievements of educational reform is to build a more independent, creative and professional kind of teacher, Ding says.

According to the Teachers' Training Act of 1994 and the Teachers' Act of 1995, a teacher's professional status, with its rights and obligations, is specified and separated from that of a civil servant. Moreover, the training of teachers is no longer confined to the normal school systems that sent their graduates to elementary and high schools all over the country. All university graduates who have completed required education programs can apply for teaching certificates and positions at schools that work on their own to hire teachers. More significantly, teachers are given more power to take part in the management of school affairs, which were formerly decided by principals alone. Wu points out that this power and its attendant meetings and discussions offer a brand new dimension to a teaching career, although some might not welcome the possible distraction from their teaching work.

The new model of textbook compilation and selection also expands the role of teachers in the education process. Before 1996, all textbooks at elementary and high schools were standard editions from the National Institute for Compilation and Translation under the Ministry of Education (MOE). Now the institute has become a regulator of textbooks. Instead of just taking a standard textbook edition to the classroom, teachers have to reach an agreement through extensive discussion before their school determines an appropriate textbook. "The selection process forces teachers to get more understanding of the teaching materials and to communicate with one another," Ding says. "Such practice is indispensable for shaping the independent, professional role of a teacher."

One Guideline, Many Editions

There has been a lot of controversy over the "one guideline, many editions" model, however. Chang points out that, while the new approach might avoid government ideology, it cannot get rid of publishers' own ideologies. Also, in addition to the higher prices of selected textbooks compared with standard editions, students and their parents, being afraid that reading just one edition would inadequately prepare them for school entrance examinations, might have to buy more supplementary readings or go to cram schools.

Taipei City mayor Hau Lung-bin called for returning to standard textbook editions during his election campaign last year, and is now promoting this educational policy that Taipei plans to implement together with governments of Taipei County and Keelung City in junior high schools. Accordingly, KMT legislators are trying to revise the Compulsory Education Act, a move that the MOE and most DPP legislators oppose. Ding looks at this debate as something likely to arise in a transitional stage. "It takes time for a new model to develop and accumulate results," he says. "Before the new model matures, habitual reliance on the old one will linger."

A Wider Gate

The controversy over the textbook issue has been largely triggered by its immediate connection to school entrance examinations. In the past, the single joint entrance examination each year was generally the only and ultimate standard by which a high school graduate could enter a senior high school or university. The rigorous admission system, "taking a single exam that determines your whole life," became a major target of educational reform. Designed as a part of the new multi-channel admission system, the two national joint examinations each year for junior high school graduates and one for senior high school graduates are supposed to be a yardstick of basic learning ability that forms the basis of subsequent recruiting process at individual schools. However, the once exclusive reliance on the entrance examination has proven hard to get away from. Currently, the two annual joint examinations for junior high school graduates, both of which an examinee can take and then pick the best result, work largely in the same fashion as the old standard for admission to senior high schools--but with twice the workload.

With respect to the joint examinations themselves, Ding says that their test questions have effectively turned away from requiring memorization of textbooks to be more about intellectual competence and understanding basic concepts, although some critics like Chang Chien-chen point out that easier test questions tend to impose more pressure on students--especially those who perform better academically--in a severe competition where the narrowest margin in test scores makes a lot of difference. "Examinations as an allocation mechanism are usually what the great majority of people agree on in the Chinese-speaking world," Ding says. "In consideration of varying consensus and acceptability among the general public, there could be a dynamic balance or adjustable proportion in admission systems between exams and other channels."

Richer, Smarter Kids

While the government's education policy is shifting toward pluralistic learning and recognition of a greater range of abilities, schools that really want to develop their own strengths in certain fields can take advantage of the multi-channel admission system, in which the joint examination is just a recruitment criterion among other ways to display a learner's real potential. "It's important to develop possibilities for schools to make their own decisions and adjustments," Ding says, "and there might be an increasing number of schools which want to do that."

Chang Chien-chen points out that the policy makers must be aware of the tendency of the multi-channel admission system to create benefits for students from families in more socially advantaged groups. These students are more likely to acquire abilities in different areas or make snappier applications for schools, for example. As part of the MOE's efforts to offset that tendency, Chang's department has reserved six seats for next year's applicants from senior high schools in remoter areas. "The greater participation by parents in the management of schools usually gives voice to those from the middle and upper classes," he says. "As for parents from the lower classes, they don't know what to say even if they have time to express their opinions." The professor of education believes that if education reform is to be re-reformed, its inclination toward elitism or liberalism could be a major target.

Write to Pat Gao at pat@mail.gio.gov.tw