On a rainy morning in New Taipei City earlier this month, 500 students from Shu Lin High School’s affiliated middle-school division (樹林高中附設國中) were sitting in an indoor sports facility, witnessing a paradigm shift in the nation’s public education system — one that could have long-term ramifications.
“During the journey of life, I hope you can think about what you truly want to do,” principal Lu Hung-ching (呂宏進) announced.
“Studying isn’t the only thing. Good grades aren’t everything.”
Photo: Enru Lin, Taipei Times
The focus on personal fulfillment is the latest message being sent to students — a new tune for a public school that previously urged young children to stay on the path of academic scholarship.
Since 2011, Shu Lin and other junior-high schools across Taiwan have been exhorting students to explore their interests, abilities and personalities, and to think about what careers truly suit them best. The push has become part of the new 12-year compulsory education plan, a byzantine reform to the nation’s schools that comes into effect in August and is made up of 12 separate projects. At the same time, another change has been rolled out quietly, with its own major implications.
For the past three years, instructors have been required to provide career counseling at the junior-high school level. While counseling has always been available for students who sought it, under the 12-year education scheme, the service is integrated into the school day and mandatory for the entire student body.
A second and more significant change to the counseling is its underlying message. In guidelines sent to school instructors and administrators, the Ministry of Education (MOE) urges them to help students “develop according to their disposition” (適性揚才).
‘ACCORDING TO THEIR DISPOSITION’
Across Taiwan, teachers have begun encouraging students to explore vocations that best suit their interests, abilities and personalities — even if these vocations do not lead to college.
At the Shu Lin High School presentation, professional animator Kent (肯特) told the assembly about his career and the alternative paths of education that could lead to it, while Lin Tsung-hsien (林宗憲), the day’s host, asked the children to share their wackiest aspirations.
“What is your dream job for the future?” he asked.
Lin himself listed sausage-making or cosmetology, with a specialty in sunspot removal, as possible answers.
The push to “develop according to disposition” is partly about filling a national shortage of skilled blue-collar workers. In addition, it’s about easing academic pressure on students, who power a cram school culture akin to South Korea’s.
This new policy also comes amid a falling return on an investment in a college education. Today, college graduates face diminishing career prospects. According to a new poll by National Taiwan University’s Center for Public Policy and Law, 70 percent of college-aged youth are currently enrolled in universities, but only 40 percent of available jobs require a college degree.
EXPERT ADVICE
In one respect, the new counseling program is consistent across Taiwan. Upon entering junior high, students each receive a Career Development Education Manual (生涯發展教育工作手冊), a blank workbook that their teachers later consult before offering vocational recommendations. Students record volunteer work, club experiences and results on personality tests, fitness tests and school exams.
But though these program requirements are constant across public schools, implementation has varied.
At the heart of the workbook are the pages on career exploration events (生涯試探活動). Schools are required to send children to events where they can explore certain specified fields, which include food and tourism, the chemical industry and agriculture.
Since 2011, the MOE has hosted a few career exploration events, but most schools have been left to their own devices.
Some schools, such as Lin Yuan Junior High School (林園中學), are sending students to nearby vocational schools for hands-on experience in different trades.
Other schools are hosting lectures by professionals — called “career experts” — in the targeted fields.
In Greater Kaohsiung, Youth Junior High (青年國中) has recruited its career experts by contacting alumni who have excelled in the workplace.
Other schools, like Greater Tainan’s Houjia Junior High (後甲國中) and New Taipei City’s Shu Lin, have gotten experts through the Eball Foundation (超越基金會) — a non-profit that handles the entire career exploration event from start to finish.
Eball was established by former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) and is directed by his daughter Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧).
Since 2012, she has coordinated over 20 career expert workshops, mainly in rural communities. The foundation also offers workplace experiences for students and a set of supporting textbooks.
It’s unclear whether this version of career advising, or any of its counterparts across the country, could truly convince students that they are free to explore their vocational interests.
It also remains to be seen how far-reaching its effects are on parents, who bear a main influence on the path of young learners.
But Su Chiao-hui, in a rare instance of cross-party amity, says the foundation is committed to working with the MOE on pushing career advising in its new direction.
“It’s just starting out — we do not know yet if the results are good or bad. We have no criticism,” she said at Eball Foundation’s career exploration event at Shu Lin Senior High.
“Still, the basic mission of the 12-year education program is guiding students to develop according to their disposition, and that goal is correct, we affirm it. The only question is how,” she said.
The arithmetic is straightforward and uncomfortable. By the end of 2025, Taiwan had committed itself to a 50-30-20 electricity mix — half natural gas, 30 per cent coal, 20 per cent renewables. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’s (MOEA) own monthly energy reports tell a different story. Natural gas reached 47.8 per cent of generation last year. Coal stood at 35.4 per cent, comfortably above its target ceiling. Renewables came in at 13.1 per cent, well short of the 20 per cent Taipei had pledged a decade earlier. Installed renewable capacity reached roughly half of the 12 gigawatts (GW) the government
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
Taiwan’s drone exports are taking off, fuelled by the war in Ukraine, as Taiwanese companies seek a stake in the fast-growing global market for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Low-cost drones used for reconnaissance and strikes are in high demand as governments around the world boost defense spending in the face of intensifying conflicts. A relative new player in the increasingly competitive industry, Taiwan’s pitch is to be an “Asian hub” for the production of UAVs and components free of Chinese materials, or “non-red.” That means its UAVs can be up to three times more expensive than their Chinese competitors, like the world’s biggest
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
RSS