On Sept. 25, the Taiwan Higher Education Union held a press conference to release the results of a questionnaire in which respondents were asked to assess the university evaluation system.
As many as 80 percent of the university teachers who responded to the survey said that the system has trapped Taiwan’s higher education in a formalistic approach that encourages falsification.
While seriously impinging on the time that lecturers would otherwise devote to teaching and research, the system has also failed to improve the quality of students’ education.
Some teachers even said that in order to meet the requirements of the university evaluation system they had to resort to falsifying data and requiring students to play along with this.
Unfortunately, the Ministry of Education has paid little attention to the results of the union’s survey. It simply responded with poor excuses and argued that any university evaluation system inevitably has its blind spots. The ministry insists that since the second evaluation cycle has already begun it must proceed according to the timetable.
None of the elements of the university evaluation system, from establishing the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council to setting evaluation standards and modes of operation, have resulted from a process of democratic discussion. Some universities have even instituted absurd practices such as telling students to memorize their schools’ mottoes and goals.
The evaluation system’s unitary and standardized indices cause universities and teachers in different fields, departments, positions and locations to all be assessed according to the same standards.
As a result, rigid evaluation reports and complex administrative procedures are choking off the energy of Taiwan’s higher education, while teachers are being bogged down by formalistic evaluation work as if they were taking part in an essay-writing contest.
Moreover, the evaluation system provides under-par school authorities with the means to oppress teachers and even get rid of those who hold dissident opinions.
Taiwan’s higher education evaluation system is market-oriented, and there was no democratic discussion held when the system was being set up.
In its implementation, the system fails to protect teachers’ academic freedom and labor rights. It also undermines the right of students to education, while creating a hierarchical power structure on university campuses.
The system is to blame for the loss of public spirit in Taiwan’s higher education and serious flaws have been laid bare for everyone who works in higher education to see.
Such concerns prompted teachers who care about the future of Taiwan’s higher education and friends worried about the way it has been going to join protests in front of the ministry on Sep. 28, Teachers’ Day.
All those who took part were united in calling for the ministry to suspend the university evaluation system and subject it to a thorough review.
Chen Shu-han is director of the Taiwan Higher Education Union’s office.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The White House’s decision to take a 9.9 percent stake in Intel Corp is looking like very shrewd business indeed. Since the government bought in at US$20.47 a share last August, the US chipmaker’s surging stock price has delivered the US a US$43 billion return. One of the reasons the investment has so far proved so sound is that the White House has made sure of it. According to The Wall Street Journal, Howard personally pushed deals on Intel’s behalf with some of the most lucrative clients imaginable. They include Nvidia Corp, the company at the heart of the AI
The Ministry of the Interior, working with the navy and coast guard, is organizing Taiwan’s first joint exercise simulating escort tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG) and oil through a Chinese blockade. The drills simulate fuel transport along three maritime corridors leading toward Japan, the Philippines and the US. Deputy Minister of the Interior Sawyer Mars (馬士元) said that a blockade of the Taiwan Strait would amount to “almost a 100 percent blockade of the regional energy supply.” Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo said planning to counter a blockade is standard practice in Taipei. While the exercise is limited in
A single photograph can cut through a lot of noise, but it can also be used to misrepresent the truth. At the very least, it can concentrate the mind on something that requires further investigation. On Monday last week, Ma Ying-jeou Foundation CEO Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) and former National Security Council secretary-general King Pu-tsung (金溥聰) held a news conference in which they showed a photograph of former foundation CEO Hsiao Hsu-tsen (蕭旭岑), now Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) deputy chairman. In the image Hsiao is seated next to Xiamen Taiwan Businessmen Association chairman Han Ying-huan (韓螢煥). The two men were holding
I first met Professor Ray Jiing (井迎瑞) as a film and documentary student at Shih Hsin University’s (SHU) Department of Radio Television and Film in 1988. The following year, he went on to become the director of the Chinese Taipei Film Archive — forerunner of the Taiwan Film and Audiovisual Institute (TFAI). Over his eight-year tenure, Jiing rescued and restored over 200 classic Taiwanese films. In 1997, he established the Graduate Institute of Studies in Documentary and Film Archiving at Tainan National University of the Arts (TNNUA), and I joined the program in his third cohort of students. Beyond a
RSS