Education proposals voted down

‘NOT FAIR’:A proposal by protesting parents for follow-up recruiting could prompt complaints from students assigned to less-desirable schools, a Taipei official said

By Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

A proposal to adjust the high-school admissions system was voted down at a meeting between parents and Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung education officials on Thursday night.

On Thursday morning, members of several education groups staged a protest against the system in front of Taipei City Hall.

According to the 12-year national education system, students select groups of five schools based on their high-school entrance exam results and rank the groups based on how good they think their chances of admission are.

Parents at the meeting voted against the measure, Taipei Department of Education division chief Chung Te-hsin (鍾德馨) said.

Another proposal to cancel a rule deducting one point from a student’s overall score if they are not assigned to a school was also vetoed, he said.

Chung said the second proposal would have breached the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法), which states that students’ ability to rank the groups of schools they are likely to be admitted to is one of three criteria governing their overall score.

Abolishing the rule would mean all students would receive full marks in that criteria, making it redundant, he said.

The protesters also asked that public high schools implement follow-up recruitment to ensure that admissions reach capacity at all schools.

However, Chung said that no public schools in Taipei met the requirements — such as minimum class size — for follow-up recruitment.

He said that as follow-up recruitment is aimed at students who fail to be admitted to any school, it could prompt students assigned to schools considered less prestigious, or to expensive private schools, to demand a chance to take part in a follow-up test as well, thereby compromising the admission system’s fairness.

Meanwhile, a member of the education groups said conclusions reached at the meeting should be invalidated, as some parents who voted were not qualified to vote.

Alliance on Obligatory Education director-general Wang Li-sheng (王立昇) said that at least one parent from New Taipei City should not have been at the meeting, as the parent’s children had already graduated from high school.

Wang called the conclusions unacceptable, adding that he would ask the Control Yuan to investigate the meeting’s legitimacy.

National Parents’ Alliance for 12-year Compulsory Education vice president Chen Chi-chen (陳綺貞) said some parents from Keelung opposed the proposals, because they believed the current rules satisfied the needs of students and schools in the city.

Chen said the parents probably opposed the proposal, because according to an alternative admission system introduced by the Ministry of Education, students who test better at school have a better chance of being admitted to higher-ranking universities.

She said that the parents probably opposed the proposal because they want their children to attend high schools in Keelung, where there is less competition.