THE POOR ACADEMIC performance of some high school and university students has attracted a lot of criticism from both the ruling party and the opposition. In response, the Ministry of Education may revisit a system that would allow senior high schools to make students who perform badly repeat a year. Premier Liu Chao-hsiuan (劉兆玄) even proposed that a joint graduation exam be instituted to improve performance.
Although nobody opposes such improvements, it is worthwhile to look at just how this system would help improve grades.
In East Asia, where diligence is strongly emphasized, whenever we think about improving grades, we think of strict implementation of curriculums, more exams and the elimination of poorer students.
Not many people realize, however, that some of the major problems with Taiwan’s secondary education system are that it rejects the idea that students have different academic levels, inflexibly follows standard curriculums and places excessively high demands on students.
These problems mean that the education system has a damaging effect on some students and does not help improve their grades or performance.
Differences in talent, learning environments and personal habits can make a big difference to grades even in elementary school. Later in junior high, the differences are more obvious as courses become more difficult, especially in key subjects that require long-term accumulation of knowledge, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry and languages. Different academic levels between students cannot be eliminated merely by students working harder or by teachers trying harder. The only way to solve these problems is to design different courses for students at different levels.
With Taiwan’s competitive entrance exams, students who performed poorly were often abandoned by being placed in classes organized according to the “ability-grouping system.” This system was later seen as undesirable and abandoned.
In today’s “mixed-grouping system,” teachers can only use intermediate-level textbooks and cannot teach content that is harder or too easy. As a result, gifted students get bored and less gifted students fail to follow the material.
For the latter, time is wasted in the classroom and the humiliation of failing tests is an everyday problem. School becomes a source of pain and learning loses all sense of fun. How can such students retain an interest in learning? How can we possibly expect them to acquire knowledge?
As students enter senior high school or vocational high school, an ability-grouping process takes place in the joint entrance exam. In theory, teachers are finally able to teach according to student ability. Unfortunately, all schools must follow the standard curriculums released by the ministry; no adjustments are allowed.
Worse, vocational school students are encouraged to advance to higher education just like students in regular high schools. It is very difficult for vocational school students to succeed in gaining access to higher education. The classes they need to take are often too difficult and allow no adjustment for student or teacher.
How are students meant to learn if they do not understand the content of lessons? In many cases it is a miracle if students do not skip class.
Some students in less well-off colleges and universities do not even know the English alphabet. They are accused of not studying hard enough, but don’t realize that the high schools they attended should take the biggest proportion of the blame.
It would have been impossible for high school teachers not to know that their students could not memorize the alphabet, yet they continue to do nothing to remedy the situation and blindly go about teaching advanced grammar. This is an absurd situation.
But whose fault is it really? Similar problems exist in the teaching of mathematics, physics and chemistry. It is therefore necessary for the education system to install curriculums that accommodate intermediate levels; otherwise, low-achieving students will have virtually no chance of catching up. It is normal for students to have different levels of proficiency. The key point is: Are we willing to face these differences?
The education system ignores difference and tortures low-achieving students with lesson materials that they do not understand. This means that the students only grow more confused as they proceed through the school system.
The old saying of “pulling at seedlings to help them grow” is most poignant in this case.
We can change the situation by recognizing that diversity exists. Lower-achieving classes should adopt easier class materials. Although the level would be lower than the ministry’s standard curriculum, such students could at least learn something because the courses would be more comprehensible.
For example, lower-achieving vocational high school students could study junior-high school English instead of pretending to learn what is forced upon them in the current system. When they graduate, they would at least have the English proficiency of a junior-high student.
It may sound odd, but attaining this level of English is better than failing at a higher level or not having any English at all. The same theory applies to other key subjects. This would leave most students with their feet on solid ground in each subject.
Teaching of such classes would not be haphazard. Stricter demands could be placed on students of all levels according to their abilities. The word “strict” here refers to the aptitude of teaching and an insistence on meeting criteria that would encourage students to study.
Lower-achieving students often have weaker motives to learn. Stricter attention to their circumstances are thus recommended. If students are taught according to their proficiency, a push for stricter requirements would see their performance improve.
The goal of education is not to have students meet the same standard, because this is impossible.
The real goal of education should be to help each student improve according to his or her own ability. Denying student diversity deceives everyone.
In this light, the answer to whether a joint graduation exam is necessary is quite clear.
Huang Su-jen is an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology at National Taipei University.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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