Taiwan's education needs
Lee Chia-tung's (李家同)article ("Low-income students are crying out for our help," Dec 5, page 8) articulates a starting point that would throw taxpayers' money at the problem, a remedy that calls for government subsidies of supplemental education.
Lee's good intentions have the objective of creating alternative pathways to learning. The problem is that the bureaucracy holds these students hostage to their systematic obsession with tests and examinations. Mean-while, alternative cram schools are under-regulated, unaccredited and there is no test standardization of national objectives. The government can't even get city street signs "internationalized," so it would be pure folly for it to subsidize the cram schools in hopes of the internationalization of the economy.
There is, however, a foreign government-sponsored and globally established testing standard in the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) (http://www.ielts.org/index.htm), used by Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand but only grudgingly by the US.
The idea of a test standardization regime is not as intimidating as it sounds as it is designed simply to enable students to be placed in English-language classes at the level appropriate to their ability.
In Australia, the immigration laws have even integrated what is known as ELICOS (Independent English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students) accreditation standards as part of the immigration points system as well as mandatory language training for those at the lower end of proficiency levels. These accreditation standards are for the private-sector supplemental education of non-native speakers of English (http://www.elicos.edu.au).
The US has similar professional organization standards floating around but TESOL is not the leading agency in setting the international standards of English. Unlike the experience of the British Empire, some of the professional barriers to TESOL standardizations stem from American experiences under domination of public- sector teacher unions. While American English has cornered the market in Taiwan, it would be pure folly to copy the US on this standardization issue.
Private sector initiatives require the patronage of parents and other stakeholders in the success of their children's study of English. There are online cram schools based in the US that do follow accreditation standards but Internet-based solutions are not an option for the poor if their broadband access and affordability is stifled by the government monopoly. The excellence of brick-and-mortar cram schools is stifled by qualitative inconsistencies in their testing standards and accreditation.
Can these problems be solved by throwing government money at these problems? No. There needs to be a private- sector coalition of the parents, crams schools, "cowboy teachers" and especially of the English-media interests that can implement industry standards for the internationalization of the educational marketplace. Industry self-regulation only begins with the private sector establishment of an industry-service organization of these stakeholders. If we wait for government-based solutions we are asking for more problems.
The government itself is the impediment to the local educational cornerstones of the economy. Students need market-based solutions, multiple educational pathways and private-sector initiative to implement industry benchmarks. Please do not allow monopolistic holds on the future of English education to allow students to become hostage to outmoded Confucian educational systems with imperial examinations and ineffectual solutions.
Jeff Geer
Las Vegas, Nevada
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