INTERVIEW: Minister touts transformation of education system
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung, in a recent interview with the ‘Liberty Times’ (the ‘Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) staff reporters, spoke of the need for national education and higher education to transform to learner-centered models and to implement student-centric reforms, such as more elective courses, decreasing the importance of tests, adjusting the number of private universities and implementing student-controlled educational and vocational choices to stand students in better stead for their future careers
Liberty Times (LT): The amended Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法) stipulates that student representatives on the Curriculum Guidelines Evaluation Committee must be nominated by the Executive Yuan and approved by the Legislative Yuan. As new committee members might not be familiar with creating curriculum guidelines under the 12-year national education system, is there enough time to implement new curriculum guidelines by 2018 as planned?
Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠): To have the 12-year national education curriculum guidelines implemented by 2018 is the expectation of many school officials and teachers.
However, there is little time, as it is estimated that it would take one-and-a-half years for textbook publishers to draft and edit textbooks and the committee to evaluate them. It would leave only six months for the nomination of a maximum of 49 members for the committee and to have them approved by the legislature — only then would the committee be able to evaluate and approve the suspended new curriculum guidelines.
As a result, the Ministry of Education hopes amendments to National Education Curriculum Evaluation Directions and Regulations (國教課綱審議要點辦法) can be completed within two months’ time, whereupon they are to be submitted to the legislature for review.
We hope lawmakers consult the public for recommendations in the nomination process of committee members, and that student representatives are selected from those who received recommendations from relevant education resource centers and student groups.
The ministry is to ask the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee to expedite the appointment of representatives to the evaluation panel, so that both the nomination and evaluation processes can be sped up.
Apart from the controversial social studies curriculum, whose implementation has been delayed for another two years, the 12-year national education curriculum and other topically organized curriculums are to be submitted to the soon-to-be-established committee.
We propose to involve textbook publishers in the evaluation process to facilitate familiarization and to allow for the earliest possible start of textbook drafting and editing.
However, there are unknowns in how the legislature would proceed with evaluation of Curriculum Guidelines
Evaluation Committee nominees and how much time the committee would need for evaluating the curriculum, as well as an additional round of “micro-adjustments” to the curriculum that could prove necessary due to the delay of the social studies curriculum.
As our priority is drafting a good curriculum, the ministry is to refrain from pushing for the implementation of the 12-year national education curriculum on schedule if it is further pushed back by operating delays.
LT: Under the new 12-year national education curriculum, what exactly is to be offered to the junior-high school students entering senior high schools and vocational high schools?
Pan: The consensus for vocational high school and senior-high school curriculums is to increase the number of elective courses, so that students may choose learning in accordance with their interests and talents.
This would entail great changes to teaching at senior high schools and vocational high schools. The ministry would select 18 schools to pilot the reforms, reducing restrictions on senior-high school teaching, increasing the number of elective courses offered, with the groundwork done during the process of developing the curriculums.
In addition to drafting curriculums and their textbooks, more budgetary resources are to be dedicated to improve the educational quality of senior high schools and vocational high schools, and to increase the training and number of teachers, while diversified education would also require adjustments to educational guidance and learning evaluation tools.
LT: President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) pledged to replace entrance exams for high schools and vocational high schools with applications. What would be done about abolishing entrance exams? What would be the changes made to entrance exams for university-level education to correspond with the 12-year national education curriculum?
Pan: The traditional educational system and tests are widely panned by the public because they are inadequate in developing diverse and autonomous student learning.
Tsai’s call for senior high schools and vocational high schools to enroll students through an application process is intended to give students a diverse developmental environment for their nine-year education during the period from elementary to junior-high school.
School districts that already have a sufficient number and distribution of senior high schools and vocational high schools to take on students graduating from junior-high schools are to be selected to enter a trial program that dispenses with examinations for student enrollment.
Entrance examinations are to remain in effect mostly in urban districts, but the ratio of schools that recruit by application is to be increased.
A total abolition of entrance examinations is the long term objective, but it would not take place until supporting measures to improve educational quality in senior high schools and vocational high schools are complete.
Policy implementation would proceed by stages and there would be no abolition of or great changes to entrance exams for students graduating from junior-high schools.
LT: The ministry spent a year revising its plans for higher education reforms. With regard to the establishment of the NT$5 billion (US$153.82 million) closing and repurposing fund for universities, would the ministry continue its plans to amalgamate public universities and close 40 private universities, or is it to focus on addressing a structural imbalance of the number of private and public universities?
Pan: A previous plan to establish the NT$5 billion fund for use over five years is essentially a repackaging of three old proposals: the “top-university,” “exceptional teaching” and “professional skills innovation” plans.
There should be more focus from the student-centric perspective on higher-education reform. The ministry is to address the issue with the guideline of “comprehensive national higher-education resource integration and balanced regional development.”
Every county and city is to have a balanced ratio of private and public universities, and we have not written off the idea of publicizing private universities.
Public universities are to comprise between 60 percent and 70 percent of all universities, which would be an effective solution to the structural imbalance and ease a student debt burden caused by education in private universities.
Private universities that are closing or repurposing should be managed as public goods. The NT$5 billion fund is to be used for relocating affected students and teachers. Before committing to closing or repurposing, private schools that had received donations when founded must purpose their properties and liquid assets for public ends.
We hopes profit from repurposed private universities could be returned to the fund or the general public, and the fund would generate rollovers that could be used to improve the higher-education environment for students, not merely as a subsidy to ease closing private universities.
LT: President Tsai said she would address the issue of low wages for young people, but the ministry’s subsidization of corporate internships for university graduates in 2009, also known as the “22k policy,” was widely derided as having contributed to the problem. While the ministry has proposed to close the “research and productivity gap” by linking university research and private enterprises, how would it reduce the “academia and employment gap?”
Pan: President Tsai has ordered the Ministry of Labor to make a policy proposal within a month addressing the issue of low wages for young people. The Ministry of Education is to focus on professional skills training by giving students a balanced approach to learning and employment opportunities.
The cooperation of private enterprises and academia is not to make student apprenticeships a source of cheap labor. It is designed to address a tendency of educational institutions to fixate on sending students to highly regarded schools, at the expense of their future opportunities for employment.
When I served in the Taichung City Government, I was a part of the Youth Hope Project that envisioned the government as a platform for vocational high schools, universities and private enterprises to come together, allowing private enterprises and universities to work directly with senior high schools to promote business start-ups, job skills and employment.
Through inter-university cooperatives, universities and colleges would provide opportunities for higher education to students with professional skills and give them an education that would help toward future employment.
In particular, the path to higher education for students should have more flexibility in allowing students to return to school, instead of being a one-way progression offering either entrance to research universities or technology universities.
Employment has an accumulative effect on experience and income, and going back to school should not be a reason for students to incur debts.
A true linkage between education and employment should be about empowering students to have more options and the flexibility to transition from work and school, which would also help to develop a pool of students that higher education needs.
LT: President Tsai said the concept of “the state’s right to educate” should be transformed to “the citizen’s right to learn.” What are the education ministry’s plans for structural transformation of education?
Pan: Just as Tsai said, Taiwan must transition from “democratic confrontation” to “democratic dialogue.”
For example, students at all levels of education may, by law, participate in drafting regulations on statues [referring to the controversy over statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) on campuses], military instructors on campus, tuition adjustments, and attire and appearance.
Many educational issues that led to confrontation and controversy on campuses could have been addressed through participation of and consultation with students. There is to be more educational administration and democratic dialogue between teachers, staff and students to enable fair and just reforms and the transformation of Taiwan’s education system.
The interview was conducted by Jennifer Huang, Rachel Lin and Wu Po-hsuan, and translated by Jonathan Chin
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