tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post3965716301672004693..comments2023-10-22T18:25:39.688+08:00Comments on The View from Taiwan: Paper on Parade: Taiwan's Universities and GlobalizationMichael Turtonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-17005598727468620072009-01-23T14:08:00.000+08:002009-01-23T14:08:00.000+08:00One the one hand, I find the equation of “internat...One the one hand, I find the equation of “internationalization” with learning English pretty funny. While not exactly anthropomorphic in conception, the idea is driven by the same sort of reflexivity at the heart of the pathetic fallacy; it’s not far away from imagining that eating the tongues of urban Midwesterners in the States could make one’s English pronunciation “correct.”<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, though, this is all quite serious; an extreme waste of money and opportunity –- a waste with very deleterious economic consequences. About the only thing intelligent in all of it is the government’s fear of losing competitiveness. It’s slapdash policy, what in China they call “crossing the river by stepping on stones.” I think whether here or in China, though, the nature of the whole approach is better summarized not by whimsical idiom but by this quote: "I hate jailbird chess...I hate the style...like a fuckin' little tweety bird...'eeww, here's a move!" (Robert Stone, Dog Soldiers [1974])<BR/><BR/>The pure top-down thinking displayed by the later policies cited in the paper is partly a consequence of the failure of Lee Yuan-tse’s reforms at the turn of the millenium; people were confirmed in their culturally-conditioned notion that bottom-up change almost never works. (You could feel back then the government’s desperation in deciding to throw a huge amount of money at top universities in an effort to get them into international top-100 rankings.) But the truth with regard to education-system problems is opposite: without enough bottom-up change, top-down policy-making can never be effective – precisely as the failure of Dr. Lee’s efforts showed; parents acting out cultural imperatives sank a well-intentioned liberal program that naively failed to well-enough take into account those imperatives.<BR/><BR/>Taiwan can’t internationalize so long as fear of being weeded out is the primary motivator of persons; the whole “weeding out” ethos (not merely the idea itself, but also the ideas that support it and that it supports) militates against the liberal (every sense of the word) thinking at the core of the denotation of “internationalize” in most other developed nations’ vocabularies.<BR/> <BR/>Though it gets me in trouble to say so here, the evidence appears quite strong to me that the illogic of most of the major premises driving the policies cited in the paper may never be obvious to enough Taiwanese if the fundamental, non-supernatural-yet-still-religious-in-character premises of culture (especially the “harmony” value) are not first examined and to a large-enough degree diminished in power.<BR/><BR/>Until then, a Chinese meme dating back to the Opium War will probably continue to prevail: the idea that you can modernize (read “internationalize” here) by selecting the “superficial” virtues of foreign thinking and methods while keeping the more essential, core Chinese virtues. And that notion is another strong root of the education-system-policy folly. I don’t see how there will ever be many much-needed non-English department foreign faculty members at Taiwanese universities until this whole racialist assumption is exchanged for more universalist views – which in this case, as repeated policy failure shows, almost certainly would constitute more clear-sighted and practical views.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-52508813243168012632009-01-22T16:47:00.000+08:002009-01-22T16:47:00.000+08:00I guess we (Indians) are not the only country (Ind...I guess we (Indians) are not the only country (India) facing this issue. Taiwan looks like has similar issues. Indian universities (colleges which are getting converted to universities recently) have little or no standards of teaching. All these colleges care about is number of students they take in. Quality is dropping like a lead-ball. But neither the government nor the universities care. <BR/><BR/>This is the prime reason why Indians always choose to go abroad to pursue higher education. You see thousands of bright students going to USA, UK and Australia each year because quality of education there is much better than at home. Students don't mind taking in huge sums of loan and repay for years together after graduation all to seek better education and opportunities. <BR/><BR/>We infact are in the business of helping students find the best overseas education they can afford. <BR/>- S<BR/><A HREF="www.CollegeToU.com" REL="nofollow">www.CollegeToU.com</A>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-11636992392904447472009-01-18T18:51:00.000+08:002009-01-18T18:51:00.000+08:00I totally agree. China is rapidly outstripping Tai...I totally agree. China is rapidly outstripping Taiwan, which refuses to pay for world-class talent, as well as completely revamp its teaching methods.<BR/><BR/>MichaelMichael Turtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17974403961870976346noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10698887.post-18049021581197928022009-01-18T06:06:00.000+08:002009-01-18T06:06:00.000+08:00I don't know about non-science major. However...I don't know about non-science major. However, 40k for an assistant-professor with under whelming start-up fund is hard to attract young talents to be competitive globally (see latest C&EN). Some low Tier1 and Tier2 schools in the US pay more and have better start-up funds.<BR/><BR/>Some schools in China pay more these days through under the table compare to Taiwan. Also, would you pro-green fight over recognition of degrees from top China universities? While, it is almost laughable when some of the top universities degrees are more recognizable these days then NTU.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com