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Former minister warns against chancy policies

Former minister of education Kuo Wei-fan (郭為藩) yesterday proposed that the ministry establish a security mechanism to supervise education reform, which would function as a detector of dangerous policies and stop them in time.

Kuo made the remarks while speaking at the opening ceremony of an education-reform symposium held by the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU).

The symposium, entitled "The New Direction of Education Development: Writing a Prescription for Education Reform," attracted more than 300 people who specialize in education at different school levels. Former education ministers Kuo and Wu Jin (吳京) as well as the incumbent minister, Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村), attended the symposium.

Kuo, who launched the ad hoc Educational Reform Evaluation Committee in 1994, said he held a reserved attitude toward the 12-year compulsory-education program. He suggested that the ministry should find out why this policy could not be implemented yet, because it has been discussed for more than 20 years.

The nation adopted a nine-year compulsory education system in 1968.

"We have to figure out whether the proposed program would solve the problems in high schools or just complicate the reform," Kuo said.

"Money is also a big issue here," Kuo said.

"The ministry should take the costs and effects into consideration. [The government has to] make sure that the reform does not edge out the budgets of other programs," he said.

Huang said that the ministry would not carry out the 12-year compulsory education program before a complete plan had been devised. He reiterated that the education reform is not equal to education itself, but is only a small part of the huge education task.

"We can never lose our faith in the reform just because of a few setbacks," he said.

Kuo said that, as a former minister, he could empathize with Huang because he had to face pressure from the Legislative Yuan, the media as well as a political campaign while trying to direct education reform.

"I felt that the education reform was still guided by the higher authorities and many policies were made to gain votes in the elections," Kuo said. Some ministers, Kuo said, without dropping any names, quickly threw out new policies even though they did not understand their content.

"What they want is to catch the media's attention or what seems like achievements, in their terms, while disregarding the feasibility or aftermath of their actions," he said.

"All of these caused a detour in the education reform," Kuo said, adding that he's worried that the pro- and anti-education reform groups have approached the situation in a too political manner.

Former minister Wu Jin pointed out that the students and teachers should be regarded as the principle parts in the reform.
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