Liberty Times (LT): Last year has been referred to as the final year before the government begins closing down multiple universities. What is the future of Taiwanese higher education?
Chen Liang-gee (陳良基): The nation’s declining birth rate is a pressing issue, but more important is a lack of motivation to learn — and in addition the inability to focus social resources in nurturing talent.
High rates of absenteeism or the lack of interest during class is reflective of low motivation. It is as if Taiwanese children are seeing their college days as a late childhood period where they are free to do as they please.
More than 50,000 students delay their graduation for various reasons each year. Higher education must question how universities can gain a competitive edge via faculties and resources.
University education is supposed to foster skills that would be useful to society. In line with that thought, my own educational philosophy is that educators must employ different educational methods for different students to better motivate them and cultivate their potential.
The educator should be like a gardener, cultivating and rearing different plants, instead of a carpenter that makes rigid wooden frames.
LT: If higher education aims to make the graduates useful to society, what practical abilities should they learn during this stage of education?
Chen:I think universities’ prime goal is to boost students’ initiative to learn. Vast social resources have gone into universities in hopes that the knowledge, techniques and abilities learned there would help solve society’s problems.
Only when students feel they are needed and that their education can be applied, will they be more inclined toward learning.
Universities must change their model of educating and teaching. Previously, universities were the font of education; now information could be found on the Internet. Universities must adapt by teaching how to assimilate knowledge, train students in detecting problems and foster the ability to solve them.
A number of renowned educational institutions around the world are making said changes. In the case of engineering education at Stanford University, it required that students take courses in calculus, then progress toward hydrodynamics and engineering mathematics.
Under such a learning model, the student is encouraged to work on projects based on the knowledge of hydrodynamics. The student would then be motivated to take courses on hydrodynamics, which requires another course on calculus.
Corporations have constantly complained about the gap between application and knowledge, which is due to the expectations of hiring the “T-type” employee, which is defined as an employee who is sufficiently knowledgeable in both their professional subject and a side subject, so that they could work across different departments.
In regards to this shortfall, colleges should seek to provide more opportunities for cross-subject learning.
Universities should also provide students with the experience of failure, as students would thereby be conditioned and learn from their mistakes instead of giving up. Even students from Stanford have been shown to have a 90 percent chance of failure when starting an entrepreneurial business.
Taiwanese universities should offer chances for students to practice founding businesses. Such training would provide the students the experience and courage to continually strive to establish their own business in the face of failure.
LT: How can Taiwanese higher education establishments improve themselves? How can they increase their competitive edge?
Chen: The ability to communicate in English, demonstrate proficiency in using assorted applications of digital technology and having a keen perception for coming trends is key for Taiwanese students to survive and contribute internationally.
Proficiency in English is necessary to communicate with the world, while proficiency in the use of applied technology is necessary because modern society is driven by technology. A healthy society should be able to foster 1 to 5 percent of individuals who are uniquely capable of keeping abreast of developing trends. One of the responsibilities of higher education is to produce educated young individuals that are capable of perceiving coming trends.
LT: If students are to be seen as future leaders of society, many restrictions in various systems should be relaxed. What are your thoughts on President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) proposal that high-school graduates take a gap year before starting college to find their own way in life?
Chen: In Taiwan, 250,000 high-school students graduate every year, of which 80 percent proceeds to study in college, pursue studies abroad, enter the workforce or found their own business. However, there is a minority of about 10,000 graduates who might not have found their purpose or interest.
Every child is a treasure unto the government and these high-school graduates that are unsure of what to study should be given some room in the form of a gap year, and the nation should provide them with a viable solution.
The government has therefore pushed for the establishment of the “teen education and work employment savings account,” through which high-school or vocational high-school students would be able to discover their interests while working at different jobs.
The period of work will allow them to consider whether they want to continue to study, enter the workforce early, or establish their own business. We estimate that the account would be able to provide 5,000 students with a monthly subsidy of NT$10,000 (US$319) each year.
LT: Universities have said that they want to nurture students with interdisciplinary backgrounds, but the rigid division of departments and schools, as well as limitations due to different school systems, prove hard to overcome. How would you suggest the nation can changes this?
Chen: Such inter-departmental divisions should be broken down. Course credits should be seen more like a selection from a buffet, assembled by university students, rather than set course meals. Students should have more freedom to select courses, with their own department forming the core and working outwards from there.
For example, the universities in Australia changed their system. In terms of colleges of science, there are no separate departments for chemistry, biology, mathematics, etc. Students can select their own course credits and are not be confined to their cores in chemistry or biology.
Under such a system, it is possible to have students graduate with multiple majors in different subjects, which removes the rigid constraints of students studying only core courses within their own department.
Harvard University has also introduced courses that have mixed physics, chemistry and biology lessons in hopes of breaking down the walls between departments and encouraging inter-disciplinary learning.
LT: Universities have often said that students should have an “international view” on incidents, but recruitment has mostly focused on Chinese students or overseas Chinese in an attempt to plug the gap caused by declining birth rates. Can universities stand up to multi-language and multi-ethnic challenges that the “new southbound policy” might bring?
Chen: The policy will be a good test as to how open Taiwan is on language and ethnic plurality. This issue was also brought up this year at a meeting of universities’ directors of student affairs departments, and the consensus was that the number of Taiwanese students sent abroad is not reflective of how “internationalized” Taiwan is.
College-level English-language education and the multi-ethnic environment in colleges still needs great work.
However, this is only a matter of ratio. In the past, there have only been one to two international students per class in universities, so there was no need for all-English classes.
Some top Taiwanese universities offer courses taught entirely in English, but attendance only comprises 16 percent of total students in those schools, while the percentage of students enrolling in such courses in normal universities is even lower.
However, if 20 percent of students in a class needed all-English lessons, the environment for all-English courses would be created.
Taiwan is host to more than 28,000 students from Southeast Asian nations, and universities are planning to take in another 6,000. We plan to grow the international student population by 20 percent each year, with a goal of seeing 58,000 students by 2019.
To provide incentive for universities and staff to create an environment that is friendly toward international students, the ministry is providing subsidies for universities to hire English-proficient staff to serve as teaching assistants, which would help “internationalize” universities. The ministry is allotting NT$1 billion in funding to help promote the educational part of the “new southbound policy.”
In addition, the launch of the 12-year national education syllabus is planned for 2018, which would see the inclusion of immigrants’ mother tongues, with a particular emphasis on Southeast Asia.
The ministry encourages the children of Southeast Asian immigrants to learn their parents’ native language in hopes of propelling Taiwan onto a path of true internationalization and becoming a multi-ethnic society, which would help increase students’ competitive edge internationally.
Translated by staff writer Jake Chung
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