Rail boss says local schools failing

In a speech at the Ministry of Education, Nita Ing (殷琪), chairwoman of the Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation, said that Taiwan is facing a serious crisis of talent due to problems with the traditional educational system.

Ing said schools in Taiwan have failed to instill managers with a sense of team spirit and problem-solving skills.

Another problem is that more and more young managers are leaving the country, often because of a lack of confidence in Taiwan's educational system and a feeling that their children will have no room for development if they continue their studies in Taiwan, Ing said.

Ing said that, from a business point of view, Taiwanese education places too much emphasis on individual achievement. From a very young age, children are told that they must be No. 1.

The problem is, of course, that only one person can be No. 1, and the only way to get there is to walk over other people. The young stars created by such a system will enter the world of business lacking the necessary team spirit. They will always look at things from their own perspective and lack respect for other people.

Frequently, Ing said, the higher the person's position, the more obvious the lack of respect becomes.

Ing further pointed out that traditional education emphasizes memorization for tests and that students lack the ability to solve real-life problems.

Dhe said that after leaving school, they lack creativity and their only way of solving problems is to copy the solutions of others.

They may even be afraid of facing up to existing problems, making it very difficult to train professional managers.

Ing suggested that the necessary changes are best begun at home.

Once a child is born, Ing said, parents should take full responsibility for his education, and not just leave it to the educational system to provide for them. Families where both parents work should take special care, she continued, to make sure their children are getting the best possible education.

Furthermore, according to Ing, the government should support and teach these parents how to strengthen family education.

Ing also said that she encountered some sadistic teachers during her school years, meting out corporal punishment for trivial offenses. She even vowed to herself many years ago that once she grew up, she would come back and burn the school down.

This experience made her strongly opposed to corporal punishment, which, she said, taught children that authority figures can do whatever they please.