There is a serious education gap between Taiwan’s urban and rural areas. Take for example the Comprehensive Assessment Program for Junior High School Students: About 30 percent of all Taiwanese students receive a “C” — which is not a passing grade — in English and mathematics in this annual joint entrance examination. However, the figure is much higher than those in rural schools.
In one school in a remote area, 82 percent of the students received a “C” in English and 92 percent a “C” in math.
Students with poor academic performance are at a disadvantage. Many of them come from disadvantaged families, and they remain disadvantaged when they grow up. If junior-high school students stop their studies after graduating, it would be difficult for them to find decent jobs, and the economic pressure they face could easily lead them to gangs.
Even if poor-performing students choose to continue their studies, it could be difficult for them to catch up. Due to Taiwan’s large number of universities, schools with a student shortage admit first-year students who lag behind academically, giving university professors a headache.
For instance, if English professors find that a student majoring in English lacks basic grammar knowledge, should they waste their time teaching basic grammar in university courses?
Although the nation’s elite are not expected to pay attention to this education gap, the Ministry of Education should.
As the government repeatedly emphasizes the importance of “big data,” the ministry must have seen this gap in its data, but it has unfortunately failed to address the problem.
If the ministry is to improve rural students’ performance, it should at least ensure that every elementary school in rural areas has enough English teachers.
At the moment, many such elementary schools are sharing English teachers with one another, and most of these teachers are substitutes, not full-time teachers.
Although the recruitment of teachers is decided by local education bureaus, the ministry must take responsibility as well.
Rural children are not less intelligent than urban children, but the education they receive is quite different than that of students from high-income households because of a variety of economic factors.
If rural children encounter difficulties in English or math, their parents are often unable to help. Urban children, on the other hand, can often seek guidance from tutors and can afford to go to cram schools. These are areas where rural children are losing out.
The Boyo Social Welfare Foundation said that its research shows that children in rural areas are also able to perform well in school. Most importantly, there should be precise curriculum guidelines for them.
Take the subject of English as an example: The ministry should demand that all elementary-school students be able to write simple, grammatically correct sentences before graduation.
They do not necessarily need to learn present perfect tense in this phase, but they should at least know how to write correct interrogative sentences and negative sentences.
Hopefully, the government understands that most rural elementary-school students are unable to do this when they graduate.
Rural children are also Taiwanese, and there is no reason the government should ignore them. They have the right to high-quality education, and the government is responsible for providing it for them.
Lee Chia-tung is an honorary professor at National Tsing Hua University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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