Sad death reveals the plight of the student

It was very saddening to read about the suicide of a student attending Chien Kuo Senior High School, Taipei's best high school for boys. I was flooded with feelings of lament. This incident underlines my long-held opinion that struggling students do not receive the care they deserve.

The educational environment in this country is highly competitive. There is only one grading system, and no matter how outstanding the student, only one person can get first place.

Many Chien Kuo Senior High School students used to be at the top of their respective classes in junior high school, but after attending this elite high school, they cannot all remain at No. 1.

It is not right for us to always demand that students get the highest score in an exam. I often tell my students that good grades in examinations are not the most important thing, and only indicate that they have attained some basic knowledge. It is not an indicator of competence.

Examinations life are quite different, so training students who are only skilled at taking exams does not necessarily help them to solve their real-life problems.

Because schools are indifferent to students learning how to solve real problems in life, we should at least give students the chance to enjoy their studies.

But by pitting them against each other in exams, where only one person can come first, we demand the impossible. So even students in a top school like Chien Kuo Senior High School can come under a terrible amount of pressure.

As long as students are able to develop to their full potential, then they are No. 1. The important thing is that they should enjoy the process of growing up. I hope our education system can become more pluralistic rather than having all students pursue only one goal.

When I was a student, I set up a club aiming to teach people how to have fun in their lives. When asked what I would like to pursue at college, I often jested about my intentions to study how to party.

As a result, many poked fun at me and my parents rebuked me, saying that I only knew how to play hard but did not want to study hard.

I am actually fond of reading, but I really don't like reading textbooks. When I was pursuing my doctoral degree overseas, I found that in the top US university where I was studying, there was in fact a department called Leisure Studies.

The department even offered a doctoral degree in that field of study, which is ranked No. 1 in the US.

This discipline, simply put, is directed at teaching people how to have fun. It was not until then that I realized that my joke wasn't really a joke and that this type of study did actually exist.

I wondered why Taiwan, at that time, did not have this kind of department in colleges or universities.

Pluralism an important goal that we have to pursue in implementing educational reform. It is a pity that Taiwan's monotonous educational environment persists to the detriment of already disadvantaged students.

What's even the students from the best high schools are suffering under this system. This is an important issue that the general public, the schools and families have to carefully consider.

We also hope that both the governing and opposition parties can work together to improve our education system, rather than spending so much of their time engaging in political conflict.

Kao Jehng-jung is a professor at National Chiao Tung University.

TRANSLATED BY YA-TI LIN AND DANIEL CHENG