Elitism makes not a leader
Not long ago, Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Legislator Ann Kao (高虹安) first mocked former Hsinchu mayor Lin Chih-chien’s (林智堅) weak academic background, and then issued an insincere apology for her “imprecise use of words” at a news conference. When I saw this on TV, I could not help but think of my own past prejudices about education under “credentialism.”
I share a similar academic background with Kao, who holds a doctoral degree from a US university. Having studied at a prestigious senior-high school as well as a national university, I earned a master’s degree from a US university in New York. I was luckier than her in that after returning to Taiwan upon graduation, I successfully landed a job as a process engineer at a leading electronics company in the Hsinchu Science Park, with a pay several times higher than that of Kao, who only served as a project manager at the Institute for Information Industry (資策會).
However, while working as a process engineer, I experienced a great shock that led me to reflect on the drawbacks of education under “credentialism.” My job was to adjust the parameters of machines and to write standard operating procedures for the operators to follow. The engineers had to closely cooperate with the operators in order to increase the “yield rate.”
The problem for the highly educated engineers who graduated from top national universities or foreign graduate schools was that we had been separated from the operators since junior-high school, divided into two different worlds of education. After being separated for more than a decade, friction was unavoidable when we worked together.
Luckily, both the corporate culture and the founder’s guidance taught us to change our mindsets and adapt to cooperating with each other.
I remember during our workplace orientation, the founder told us that employees differed only in their work content and salaries, not the level of jobs.
In reality, despite holding a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford or other prestigious universities, some colleagues found being promoted to a management position difficult simply because they did not deliver.
In comparison, some supervisors with a private college degree had risen up the career ladder to decisionmaking levels thanks to the outstanding performances of their teams.
I would like to tell Kao that we have all suffered from the misconception of “diploma first,” thinking that a glorious degree is the whole world. In fact, in the real world, aside from engineers, doctors and politicians, there are cement workers, factory operators, farmers and people from all walks of life, each performing their duties and roles.
The most important questions for Kao might be: Are you truly ready to take on the role of the head of Hsinchu City? Can you treat all citizens of the city equally? Or would you offer better treatment for citizens with an Ivy League degree, and worse treatment for those who graduated from schools that are inferior to the University of Cincinnati, your alma mater?
Chen Wen-ming
Taipei
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