Earlier this year, the Ministry of Education issued a white paper on marine education policy, declaring its resolve to promote the subject. It has also announced that it will boost marine education in elementary and junior-high schools nationwide beginning in January.
As Taiwan is an island nation, an understanding of the ocean should be common knowledge to all its people. Many of the activities that people engage in involve the ocean and the sea is naturally intermixed with various fields of study at all levels of education. However, we still must admonish everyone on the importance of marine education and urge the government to adopt policies that encourage teachers to emphasize it. Only 3.5 percent of material in current elementary and junior-high textbooks involve the ocean and water. In Japan that ratio reaches 27 percent.
A 1988 UN report divided marine education into the specialized kind aimed at fostering marine scientists and the more general variety for everyone else. Departments in National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Ocean University, National Sun Yat-sen University and National Kaohsiung Marine University provide specialized education and research and train specialists.
Other institutions train intermediate level specialists in fishing and marine industries. The big problem with these programs is that students don't have much interest in them, especially at vocational school level. This is because students and parents see a marine career as risky and dangerous. Therefore, we should rather ask whether general maritime education gives students a proper understanding of the ocean.
The US' efforts to promote marine education might provide some lessons. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration handles the Sea Grant program, which supports university research and development work and assists junior-high and elementary schools with education. Various universities form an alliance and guide primary schools in implementing marine education, hold ocean research study programs for teachers and provide training on underwater filming so that teachers can produce their own educational materials.
The Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea has recommended eliminating ignorance of the ocean, inspiring awareness of the marine environment and fostering deeper marine ethics. They have also suggested using official education and various kinds of creative communication channels -- such as art, music and multimedia -- to spread scientific knowledge about the ocean environment.
The US is not an island nation, yet its citizens take great interest in the sea. This is the cyclical effect of general marine education.
Therefore, promoting general marine education to establish correct views on the ocean is the most fundamental task for Taiwan's government to pursue. This is an area that we must address more actively.
We should applaud the ministry's resolve to promote universal marine education. But there is a wide gulf between the ministry's goals to foster love and understanding of the ocean and their actual implementation in the classroom. The next important long-term project should be to narrow that gap by giving educators at all levels a correct understanding of the ocean.
We hope that the government's efforts to promote marine education can create a national "marine culture." We hope that this practical connection will transform the ocean from being seen merely as the water that surrounds us into a meaningful part of our lives.
Laurence Lwo is a professor and director of the Institute of Education at National Taiwan Ocean University. Wu Chin-kuo is an associate professor in the institute.
Translated by Marc Langer
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