Hsu gets high grades for education policy

Educational reformists yesterday released their grading of the five presidential candidates' educational policies, giving independent Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) first place followed by the DPP's Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Five indices were adopted for the grading: the guarantee of educational resources, reform of educational financing, changes to educational administrative systems, aid for the underprivileged and land planning for educational purposes, said the Humanistic Education Foundation (人本教育文教基金會).

"These are the major issues in educational development at present," said Shih Ying (史英) the foundation's executive president.

Following Chen in the survey was independent James Soong (宋楚瑜), KMT candidate Lien Chan (連戰) and the New Party's Li Ao (李敖).

Shih said Li graded last because he had not raised any policy related to the five categories, while Lien was ranked fourth because he had consistently been vague on these items.

The guarantee of educational resources was the leading concern, the alliance said.

"Since this is the basis of all educational construction and development, the promises of candidates will become empty talk unless there is a guarantee of educational resources," said Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村), a psychology professor at the National Taiwan University and a member of a Cabinet's task force promoting educational reform.

Among the five candidates, Hsu has proposed that the government's annual education budget constitute at least 6 percent of GDP. Chen has pledged to protect education funding by law, although he has stopped short of mentioning any specific percentages.

The other three candidates have not mentioned any plan in this respect.

Though the Ministry of Education has proposed a bill specifying that the nation's total education funding should constitute at least 7 percent of GDP, the administrative branch has so far not reached a consensus on this proposal.

Officials at the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics have argued that a legal stipulation would hamper the flexibility and efficiency of the government's financial planning.

Lien, who is currently the vice president, has therefore not spelled out his position on this issue.

Without a monetary guarantee, the alliance doubts the candidates' ability to turn their campaign promises into reality.

"On the one hand, they are not willing to raise enough funding for education; on the other hand, they are treating a lot of people to a free lunch," Huang said.

Reform of the educational financing system is the second concern of the alliance.

Lin Chao-cheng (林朝成), a philosophy professor at the National Cheng Kung University and a key member of the ROC Educational Reform Association (中華民國教育改革協會), said the defects of the present system are the unbalanced distribution of financial resources between the central and local governments and the inflexibility of education spending.

Hsu proposed what the alliance considers a complete plan and design, setting a standard regulating the distribution of educational funding to local governments, putting the money into a fund to upgrade its efficiency, and setting indices to evaluate the performances of all levels of government in education.

Though less specific than Hsu, Chen has proposed setting up a committee in charge of distributing education funding to local governments.