The Ministry of Education is to improve communication with senior-high schools and students in the wake of a backlash over its electronic academic portfolio initiative, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said yesterday.
With the implementation last year of the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines, the ministry has been promoting the creation of electronic academic portfolios for senior-high school students to use as part of the university application process.
However, the portfolios have drawn criticism.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
A proposal calling for an end to the initiative, submitted on Oct. 1 to the National Development Council’s Public Policy Network Participation Platform, has collected more than 8,400 signatures.
The creator of the proposal, who claimed to be a student, said that instead of aiding students in the university entrance process, the portfolios had become an “obstacle.”
The submission process was “like comparing who wrote the more exciting story,” they wrote, questioning the necessity of the portfolios.
While the initiative was intended to help universities evaluate students on more than solely their grades, the portfolios “seemed even more unable” to provide a clear understanding of students’ abilities than their grades alone, they wrote.
Responding to the petition, the ministry on Friday said that a new portfolio submission system was designed to address issues such as format restrictions, the lack of a uniform method for handling materials and the teacher certification process.
The system allows students to upload materials regularly, to prevent them from preparing and submitting everything all at once in the final semester, it said.
The portfolios are merely a tool to help students prepare their university applications, the ministry said, adding that neither the review nor the significance of the materials in the admissions process have changed.
To prevent an “arms race,” a limit has been set on the number of files that can be uploaded, it said.
Students are not required to upload files to the academic portfolios, as they can still upload application materials in PDF format, it said.
However, the ministry advises students against doing so, as such material would lack teacher certification, as well as systemization.
Yesterday at a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee in Taipei, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Wan Mei-ling (萬美玲) said that many people feel that the system not only failed to improve the effectiveness of the materials’ preparation, but also increased student stress.
Technical issues with the system have also caused students much anxiety, said Wan, co-convener of the committee.
As teachers are unable to predict the area of study their first-year senior-high school students would pursue, schools have asked students to prepare multiple materials for each subject, KMT Legislator Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said.
Schools engaging in such behavior are adopting the “wrong approach,” Pan said at the meeting.
The ministry would communicate with schools on how to properly use the system, he said.
It would also improve its messaging to students, as many of them might not understand the purpose of the portfolios, he added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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