Reform the Ministry of Education

The Ministry of Education has recently opted to ban all pre-schools from teaching English beginning in 2005. The logic behind this move is to standardize the language curriculum under which English and other foreign languages can only be taught starting from the third grade and to give top priority to learning the mother tongues, followed by Mandarin and then foreign languages.

This decision by the director of the ministry's Department of Elementary Education, Wu Tsai-shun (吳財順), is just another example of the type of fundamental errors in logic committed by the ministry in recent years.

This plan illustrates the negative impact of the strong centralization of education policy dominated by the ministry. This policy illustrates the negative impact of politics as a motivation for education policy. This plan illustrates the ministry's continued inability to correctly assess the educational needs of Taiwan.

Many people are unaware of the scope of ministry centralized control over the nation's education system. The main purpose of government involvement in education design has been to enhance the nation's development strategies and economic competitiveness. Since the mid-1960s, the Council for International Cooperation and Development (later the Council for Economic Planning and Development) linked education policies to economic goals under its manpower plans.

The most obvious repercussion of this strategy is the government's commitment to vocational training as opposed to general education. The second, less obvious, repercussion of the education planning policies is the creation of an ex-cess of vocational five-year junior colleges and four-year technology-oriented private colleges that are in effect vocational in nature.

On Dec. 12 last year Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) stated that "This situation has resulted in rapid excessive and development [of schools], poor student teacher ratios and the lowering of the quality of education overall."

In January, Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) told the legislature that the nation's higher education facilities were among the worst in Asia. Huang also admitted that less than one-fifth of the higher education schools are well above standard.

Education reform has recently become been a major point of political contention and education policy. Unfortunately, the overwhelming response is that these reforms are inappropriate and not working. In a televised broadcast on Feb. 22, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) stated, "The educational system underwent a big overhaul in terms of entrance methods and the content of all textbooks. But the result has left everybody deeply dissatisfied and at a loss."

Between Dec. 3 last year and Jan. 3, Global Views Monthly conducted a survey 2,245 seventh grade students from 70 schools nationwide, as well as 238 parents and 111 teachers. The survey showed that 70 percent of parents and teachers would like the government to reinstate the Joint College Entrance Exam.

Ninety percent of teachers surveyed said that they were having trouble keeping up with the times and having trouble teaching the new material. Teachers argued that the main reason they were having difficulties is that the education ministry's policy flip-flops have left them confused.

Of students surveyed, 54 percent claimed that they had to go to cram schools because the education reforms have failed to relieve academic pressure. The 46 percent who did not attend cram schools did not do so because they could not afford it. Students feel powerless against the various interests that create their education culture.

Now it seems that the ministry, whose top officials admit has failed the cause of higher education, will now inflict preschool with its peculiar brand of incompetence. The logic behind banning English-language training in preschools is inconsistent with the ministry's institutional logic of economic development through education.

Increasing English-language proficiency will only serve to elevate the nation's ability to be effective in the emerging global economy and to advance the employment and international education options of the nation's young people.

Giving priority to mother tongues is illogical in the pursuit of establishing Mandarin as a national language. The prioritization of indigenous languages serves no practical long-term purpose other than satisfying certain political interests while preventing teachers and schools from giving young students an advantage that could benefit them for their entire lives.

Given its admitted failures in higher education, the recent debacle in education reform policy and this ridiculous new policy on preschool education, perhaps it is time for the ministry to take a good hard look at itself before its vainglorious attempts bring further harm to students and teachers.

Simply put, the ministry is too powerful and too far removed from the needs and interests of its true clients: the students, parents and teachers. Entrenched inter-ests, bureaucratic stagnation, and a blinding centralization of power has allowed for the continued implementation of illogical, un-suitable and incompetent policies.

It seems obvious that before Taiwan can effectively fulfill it constitutional promise of universal education, the people and the government need to seriously consider reforming the ministry.

George Thompson is an assistant professor in the department of applied foreign languages at Kai Nan University in Taoyuan.