After a nine-year effort by more than 700 educational experts at home and abroad, Taiwan's first official version of a reference work on education has finally been completed.
Directed by the National Institute for Compilation and Translation (
The Chinese entries in the 12 volumes are arranged according to stroke order.
The main text is presented in 10 volumes, and the other two volumes contain a chronicle of events in the history of education at home and abroad, as well as four indices under the heading "Chinese," "Foreign languages," "Classification" and "Foreigners' names."
In the "Classification" index, the entries are divided into 37 groups based on their content. Cross references are included to help the reader locate other entries.
The 37 groups cover Chinese educational history, western educational history, the philosophy of education, educational psychology, educational economy, high school education, college education, adult education, famous schools in the world and education in China.
A VCD has also been produced for readers to find the specific volumes and page numbers of key words. Readers can use different methods to search for the entries based on their personal needs.
Director of the institute Lan Shun-te (藍順德) said the nature of the education reference book is something in-between a dictionary and an encyclopedia.
The work covers both common sense information relating to education and academic knowledge.
All important educational terms, concepts, events and issues from throughout the world's history can be found in the 12 volumes.
With the new work, "the world can acquire an understanding of the people, events, regulations, concepts and facilities in Taiwan today," Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) said.
Tzeng also paid tribute to the academics who participated in the enormous project of compiling the work.
The 80-year-old Liu Chen (
Liu said that in order to keep up with the quickly changing educational developments, theories, goals, institutions, methods and instruments, and to satisfy those who research into and are concerned about education, the society needs a set of educational dictionaries that are rich in content.
In view of the drastic social changes and rapid developments in education, Liu suggested that the institute release a supplementary volume every three to five years.
He said that a new edition would be published after eight or 10 years.
In addition to Liu, Tzeng Chi-chun (
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