Parent groups yesterday called for reforms to the high-school admissions process, urging the Ministry of Education to agree to Taipei City Government demands to use precise approximations of student test scores.
Twelve Year Compulsory Education Parental Alliance Convener Chow Mei-li (周美里) called for the ministry to agree to Taipei City Government demands to use “rulers” (量尺) as part of high-school admissions formulas.
Rulers are a statistical tool that groups students’ standardized test scores into 10 levels, which are used to calculate points used in admissions.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Use of rulers increases the importance of students’ test scores, because of their relative precision compared with other statistical tools used to incorporate the scores into admissions formulas. Following a controversy over Taipei’s use of rulers in this year’s admissions cycle, the ministry announced the statistical tool would not be available starting next year.
Chow said that without the more precise rulers, a large number of students in Taipei’s school system would be left in administrative ties, requiring the drawing of lots to determine admission places.
She added that using rulers was crucial to moving toward a simplified admissions process, stating that the high-school admissions system implemented by the ministry as part of plans for the compulsory 12-year education system had created unnecessary confusion and fear among students and parents.
“Rulers belong to students as a means of calculating scores,” New Taipei City Parental Alliance president Su Yu-cheng (蘇祐晟) said. “As they belong to all students, the Ministry of Education has no authority to arbitrarily say it will not provide them.”
He condemned the ministry for treating the statistical tool as its “private property,” adding that if Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) refused to change his stance, parents would report him to the Control Yuan.
Parents also called for ranked preferences of school choices to be removed as a factor in admissions formulas, as well as the removal of points based on participation in competitions.
In response, Wu said that the ministry would continue to review topics related the high-school admissions system. Regarding which “special admissions” and “exam-free admissions” should take place during the admissions process, Wu said the ministry would work to unify the process to ensure all students were assigned places simultaneously.
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