Tsai Ing-wen's Bizarre Proposal

Tsai Ing-wen's Bizarre Proposal
United Daily News editorial (Taipei, Taiwan, ROC)
A Translation
August 23, 2011

Summary: Tsai Ing-wen has unveiled her public education platform. She advocates fast tracking 12-year national education. She advocates a comprehensive community-based system of vocational high schools within eight years. She advocates increasing the percentage of students admitted to public universities by more than half. She advocates minimum quotas and special concessions for local students. If Tsai Ing-wen has her way, universities may soon be community-based. Such an educational platform is worse than devoid of content. It is downright bizarre. How did Tsai Ing-wen arrive at such a bizarre proposal?

Full Text below:

Tsai Ing-wen has unveiled her public education platform. She advocates fast tracking 12-year national education. She advocates a comprehensive community-based system of vocational high schools within eight years. She advocates increasing the percentage of students admitted to public universities by more than half. She advocates minimum quotas and special concessions for local students. If Tsai Ing-wen has her way, universities may soon be community-based.

Not long ago, Tsai Ing-wen was visiting the United Kingdom. She reminded the public on Taiwan that she received a doctorate from the prestigious London School of Economics. She stressed her outstanding international outlook. But predictably, when addressing higher education back home, she adopted an egalitarian outlook, She championed "Nativization" and state sponsored education, She spoke of quotas and preferential treatment, rather than competitiveness. Her double standards were surprising and worrisome.

They were surprising because Tsai Ing-wen is the beneficiary of her education at elite universities, at home and abroad. She ought to know that the nurturing of talent is an extremely complex undertaking. Yet when she addresses higher education on Taiwan, she frames issues in such simplistic terms. She equates increasing enrollment in public institutions with educational reform. In recent years, the supply of higher education has outstripped demand. Quality has steadily fallen. This is deeply worrisome. Irrational, xenophobic, community-based educational policies will only reduce the international competitiveness of students from Taiwan.

Educational policies such as these may be subject to the imperatives of DPP "Nativism," under which everything must be directed toward the ultimate goal -- Taiwan independence. They must move towards "egalitarianism" and away from "elitism." In fact, charges that higher education on Taiwan is "elitist" are trumped-up. Forcibly altering the educational system in the name of egalitarianism is more likely to sacrifice its essence, and lead to its collapse. Community-based senior high schools may be harmless. But to lump elite schools into the same category clearly represents a naive understanding of egalitarianism. This is especially true for universities. The government should encourage universities to develop their own strengths, instead of binding them hand and feet with all sorts of restrictions.

Over the past half century, Chen Shui-bian, Vincent Siew, Su Tseng-chang and other offspring of farming families have reached the top of the political pyramid, Many entrepreneurs have built empires out of nothing. This means our educational system is an effective channel for social mobility. It enables people who exert the necessary effort, to change their destinies. Nor is that all. It allows them to attend university in foreign lands. It allows young people from Taiwan to experience independent living for the first time. Different towns, different origins, different classes of people communicate with each other in dormitories. Their adaptation, learning, and sharing are important and valuable life experiences. Yet Tsai Ing-wen's policy would require universities to reserve places for local students. Young people would hide out at home for four more years, What will become of those experiences of living abroad and learning from others? Should slots for NTU be reserved for children of Da-an District residents? If so, then what will become of the desired balance between urban and rural areas?

DPP Nativism depicts venturing abroad and foreign competition as a brutal and traumatic experience, It does everything in its power to defend against them. It discourages students from venturing out into the world. It prevents students from the Chinese mainland from coming to Taiwan to compete against them. It attempts to establish a safe haven, sequestered far from the world outside. Competition today is globalized. If we attempt to create a sterile classroom, if we insist on perceiving examinations and competition as snakes and scorpions, what will happen to the international competitiveness of the next generation on Taiwan?

Take Tsai Ing-wen, for example. Her father left his native Chaochou in Pingtung during his youth, and made his fortune in Taipei, As a result, Tsai Ing-wen grew up in Taipei and successfully found her way into National Taiwan University, Cornell University, the London School of Economics, and is now waging a campaign for the presidency. That is social mobility. Tsai Ing-wen still considers herself a native of Chaochou. But would she have preferred that her father had not left home? Would she have preferred attending a community college in Pingtung? She told students at Chungsham Girls High School that she "never attended an elite school." That was hypocritical beyond belief. She was the beneficiary of abundant opportunities for upward mobility. Yet her educational policy would reduce and even eliminate such opportunities for for others. The contradiction is too glaring for wordss.

When the DPP was in power, it introduced its "five year, fifty billion" plan to establish world-class universities on Taiwan. The plan grossly misallocated resources. But at least it recognized the importance of national competitiveness. Tsai Ing-wen's educational platform, on the other hand, offers only such simplistic ideas as community colleges, egalitarianism, and exemption from testing. It promises to implement 12 year national education within eight years, but cannot tell us how it will get there, or how it will be paid for. Apparently Tsai intends to treat education as yet another social welfare program. .

Such an educational platform is worse than devoid of content. It is downright bizarre. How did Tsai Ing-wen arrive at such a bizarre proposal?

奇怪，蔡英文為何會這樣想？
【聯合報╱社論】
2011.08.23 02:26 am

蔡英文公布教育政綱，除主張加速推動十二年國教，八年內高中職要全面社區化；她也主張增加公立大學學生比率到半數以上，並要求公立大學提供一定名額及優惠給在地學生。在蔡英文眼中，大學教育似乎也必須朝「社區化」發展。

不久前，蔡英文才走訪英國，提醒台灣民眾她是名校倫敦大學政經學院畢業的博士，無非在強調自己具有出眾的國際觀。孰料，回頭面對本國高等教育問題，她採取的卻是「平均主義」策略，要走「在地化」、「公立化」路線，談的是保障名額及優惠待遇，而不是競爭力。她的雙重標準，委實令人訝異，也令人擔心。

令人訝異的是，她在國內外菁英大學受益良多，應知人才的打造是一件複雜萬端的「百年樹人」工程；為何自己談論起台灣的高教，竟用如此簡單的眼光來衡量，以為增加公立院校招生就是改革。令人擔心的則是，台灣近年高教因大量供過於求，品質正逐漸降低；若再用莫名所以的理念迫使其走向「社區化」、「排外化」，台灣學生的國際競爭力恐將更矮人一截。

其所以端出這樣的教育政綱，或許是受到民進黨「本土化」眼光的侷限，一切都要朝末端拉扯，而走向以「平均主義」牽制或取代「菁英主義」的極端思維。事實上，把台灣的高等教育視為「菁英主義」，根本是莫須有的罪名；要用「平均主義」來強行改造教育體系的結構，更可能導致其本質精神的瓦解。試想，高中職要社區化容或無妨，但要把明星學校既有的光榮都一起推平，那就顯然是幼稚的平均主義。大學更是如此，政府要鼓勵的是大學創造自己的長處和特色，而不是設定各種限制，讓它們更難自由行動。

過去半世紀，諸如陳水扁、蕭萬長、蘇貞昌等農家子弟都登上政治頂峰，多少企業家白手起家打出天下，表示我們的教育體系是一個有效的「社會流動」管道，讓努力的人可以改變自己的命運和出身。不僅如此，到異鄉上大學，也是台灣年輕人體驗獨立生活的重要起步。不同鄉鎮、不同出身、不同科別的人在宿舍裡彼此交流、適應、學習及分享，是人生重要且美好的經驗。依照蔡英文的政綱，若大學都要保留名額給在地生，年輕人可以繼續在家鄉窩四年，那麼，異地生活、同儕交流等人生際遇要從何而來？台大的名額，需要保留給大安區的子弟嗎？那還談什麼平衡城鄉差距？

民進黨的本土化論述，把出外打拚、外來競爭形容成殘酷及可怕的經驗，所以要盡力提供本地生保護，不僅避免學生離鄉背井，更要防止陸生來台構成競爭。然而，他們想要構築的那個安樂世界，與真實的世界卻有莫大的差距。當競爭已經進入全球化時代，如果我們還企圖打造無菌室教育，視考試與競爭如蛇蠍，台灣下一代的國際競爭力將何等令人憂心？

以蔡英文為例，她的父親早年離開故鄉屏東潮州到台北打天下，所以在台北生長的蔡英文得以一路順利讀進台大、康乃爾、倫敦大學，以至於今要參選總統，這就是社會流動的功能。蔡英文還記得自己是潮州人，但她會希望父親當年不要離開老家，或自己也只能在屏東上大學嗎？從這個角度看，她在中山女中向她的高中學妹聲稱自己「從沒上過明星學校」，不僅太過矯情，也分明是言不由衷。她自己享受了向上流動的美好機遇，但她構想的教育政綱卻是要減緩及消除這樣的流動機會，也太矛盾了。

民進黨執政時推出「五年五百億」計畫，要打造世界一流的頂尖大學，雖嚴重扭曲了資源的利用，卻至少還知道國家競爭力的重要。但在蔡英文的教育政綱裡，看到的卻只有社區化、平均化、免試化的簡單思維，包括要在八年內速成的十二年國教都無法陳述具體步驟和財源，只怕是把教育大計當成社會福利來辦了。

這樣的政綱，已不止是空心不空心，而是邏輯怪誕，思維畸形。不禁要問：奇怪，蔡英文為何會這樣想？