Friday, April 18, 2008

Why Educational Reform Is A Failure

The latest story making the rounds concerns a large "bilingual" private school in the Taichung area and how it allegedly took advantage of the regulations to lever the children of the rich into college, without real work.

A wise friend of mine once pointed out that the reason colleges do not move to a competitive entrance system where they compete against each other for the best students is that such a system would quickly become massively corrupt, given the desire of locals to graduate from the college with the best name. People would pay large sums of under-the-table cash to ensure that their kids got into National Taiwan University or National Chengkung University, a process already underway in the high schools and junior highs, where it is rumored that access to the top class may be acquired by gifts of money or by influence.

Tracking by competence in Taiwan's schools is forbidden under regulation by the Ministry of Education (MoE), though the practice is widespread, and winked at, at the junior high and high school level. The best students, likely college bound, are placed in one class and given the best teachers. Thus, when one reads of studies that say that Taiwanese students are better than other students at this or that, it is wise to take them with some skepticism, since it is generally not made public which class at the local high school was "randomly" selected to take the test (if you were the principal, which one would you pick?).

In some cases this tracking by competence makes sense -- in my daughter's elementary school the English courses are divided into two groups, the fast and slow, based on prior experience of English. This makes it easier to teach the kids, since abilities are not so disparate. But one influential parent complained and her kid, a total incompetent in English, was placed in the fast class based on her clout locally, to loud groans from her fellow students. The parents at my daughter's school demanded tracked classes in other subjects, but the school refused, citing regulations.....

In any case, the private high school in question was already famous among local foreigners due to allegations of a poisoning case in which the son of a rich and powerful man poisoned a foreign teacher over some trivial reprimand. According to the tale, the child was not punished because of the position of his father, and the teacher was told if she made a fuss problems would be made for her. The rich are different....

The latest episode involved an education reform aimed at rural areas, to offset the advantages enjoyed by urban students, called fan xing. Under the fan xing system, kids from rural areas and from small towns can enter college without taking the test -- through a simple interview, and based on their grades over the last three years.

The school is located in an area covered by the fan xing reform. In the most recent college application, it nominated 30-odd students through the system -- a clear abuse of the intent of the system if there ever was (it is a mystery why such a thing was permitted to occur in the first place). Naturally and inevitably, all were alleged to be children of the rich and powerful. Complaints were made to the MOE because many of the students were well known to be blow-offs with poor grades, and because the other parents who expected to abuse the reform didn't receive their expected benefit. The MOE showed up to investigate, and many of those nominated admitted that their grades were poor: "Damn! Didn't think I had 95 in English! I thought the teacher gave me 65." The school blamed the foreign teachers, who, it said, gave low grades which it had been forced to 'adjust' upward -- surely the first time in Taiwan history that a school complained its foreign teachers were too tough. According to news reports, further investigation uncovered the interesting coincidence that only the nominated students had their grades adjusted, hoi polloi were stuck with the low grades they actually received.

No wonder the Ministry faces so many problems....

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is said that the Handsome, Great, All-Mighty Ma would change this and the education system in Taiwan would be PERFECT IMMEDIATELY.

So, wait and see. You will not be blamed anymore. Heh, heh, heh, ...

Michael Fahey said...

There were some interesting stories in the Chinese-language press last month that suggested that the Fanxing program might be working as intended despite the potential for abuse that of course exists. For example, a Fanxing student Hong Fanya from Kaohsiung County's Luzhu High School became the first student from the school (established in 1999) to go to National Taiwan University ever. She said that she never dreamed that she would be accepted and only applied because her counselor told her to give it a shot. Hong had originally intended to go to Yuanjiaqi High School in Tainan City, a two hour commute. Instead, she decided to go to her local high school 10 minutes from her house after on advice from her mother that as long she worked hard, it didn't matter where she went to school.

The significance of the program may be less that it is performance based (rather than testing based), and more that it breaks the monopoly on admissions to national universities that urban elite high schools currently hold. That would be a good thing.

Anonymous said...

I was offered a job at "that" school and turned it down due to the obvious inability of the students in my demo class to even say their own names properly. The English program is being run by a former Sgt. in the in the military and the whole program seemed a little sketchy. I later discovered one of the teachers was fired from another school for stealing money and confiscating mobile phones so he could sell them later.

Maybe when the next administration brings back Diane Lee's favored Confucian morals and ethics as found in the classics.... then we can rectify what 8 years of evil Chen Shui-bian has done... because it is all him.... bring back the good ole' days.

Anonymous said...

There are many capable students at that school. In fact, there are no shortage of students who could be nominated for this program. It is a shame the administration chose to overlook them. The reputation of every student, teacher, and parent has suffered because of the choices made by a few.

Anonymous said...

Well, when the head of education in Taiwan only has a master degree what can you possibly expect...

TU Cheng-sheng
Study at the London School of Economic and Political Sciences (1974–1976)...

You guys know what does this entry mean right...most likely they ask him to leave because he did not pass the candidacy exam.

Michael Fahey said...

Andy, don't display your ignorance publicly. Whatever you may think of his politics, Tu is internationally respected expert on society in Ancient China. His massive treatise State and Society in Ancient China is an important work of scholarship that by itself is major contribution to the field. He also has a long history of other publications. The fact that he does not hold a PhD is irrelevant. And in any event the standards for receiving an MA in history at NTU when he received his were much higher than those in many PhD programs today.

His academic qualifications of lack thereof simply have no bearing on the success or failure of the Fanxing program or the larger issue of the failure of educational reform in Taiwan.

Anonymous said...

Andy, don't display your ignorance publicly. Whatever you may think of his politics, Tu is internationally respected expert on society in Ancient China. His massive treatise State and Society in Ancient China is an important work of scholarship that by itself is major contribution to the field.

Do you mean Arty, not Andy? I hope none of his references on his great works has something like this: 誰說的,我已忘了,但現在也沒有尋找的必要,反正我不打誑說謊. Also, yes, it might be okay to have a master degree and be the head of Taiwan education. However, how they hack could you be a professor in a doctoral program. New Ph.D. can only be awarded by Ph.D.s or equal degree earners in a committee. At least that's how we run things in the US doctoral programs.