After a half year's preparation and tens of millions of NT dollars' investment, the National Conference on Educational Development was held earlier this month. The conference was a big improvement over the one held nine years ago in terms of its format, topics and people involved. But it was a failure in many ways.
First, let's look at the topics chosen for the conference. This three pivotal topics were: increasing education opportunities for minority groups, promoting the quality and effectiveness of higher education and completing the phased 12-year compulsory education program.
Obviously, these topics have failed to elicit concentrated discussion from all parties concerned as well as to address problems derived from the current education reform. Most of the suggestions made in the 90 or so regional forums held before the conference focused largely on the side of "what ought to be," without a lot of clear analysis. Little has been said about conclusions made in the last conference, creating a sense of discontinuity.
Second, the conference did not really diagnose the current problems, especially those regarding the cultivation of teachers and their professional ability. As one academic pointed out, under the brunt of a knowledge-based eco-nomy, teachers are challenged by the urgency of reforms as well as complex learning results, rapidly changing society and redefinition of students' learning indices.
Education reform needs to work with teachers in order to work well. Whether in promoting constructive mathematics or the Nine-year Educational Program, teachers' ability needs to be shifted or improved to cope with the new curriculum. Unfortunately, these issues have not been addressed in the conference.
Polls conducted by the Ministry of Education and feedback from private groups have shown that problems are perceived in the process and direction of our education reform. The ideal of loosening school curriculums and lessening students' workload is impractical. Some criticize that our students are treated like guinea pigs. The reform has been implemented in such a rushed manner that parents barely have any idea about it and teachers have not improved their teaching ability along the way.
Therefore, a national conference of this scale should effectively address these major issues that derive from the current education reform. It should not be an occasion where everyone has their say and that's it. Education is a fundamental task, crucial for generations to come. In an education conference like this, it is important for the attendees to address main issues with persuasive statistics. Therefore the conference itself should be equipped with a sound structure so that the agenda can proceed efficiently. Content conducted in a scientific manner with substance should also be provided so as to enable participants to review the past and make better decisions for the future. Giving away beautifully-printed booklets for the conference would not help much.
To review the education reform over the past 10 years would have been a more suitable and practical topic for the conference. As a NT$157 billion five-year education reform program just came to an end this year, the government would have appeared more sincere in its determination to carry out the education reform if it had examined the reform in this conference.
Our education reform puts too much emphasis on easing controls on the curriculum and lessening students' workload. The policy was pushed forward without going through standard procedures so the speed was too high and the scope too vast. That is why the objective of making our students happy and excellent becomes gradually impossible. Fairness and justice have also been unprecedentedly challenged during the reform.
The conference could have been a great opportunity for us to examine these issues and set them straight. Unfortunately, the topics were inappropriate as they were proposed by the education authorities with a macro perspective. That is why the conference resulted in a discussion less relevant to the needs of the public.
Prudence Chou is a professor in the department of education at National Chengchi University.
Translated by Jennie Shih
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