Normally, I'm a big fan of certain areas of society being under national administration. For example, I am against private companies having ANY role in national transport infrastructure, communications infrastructure, National Health System and, until recently, education. The situation in Taiwan has made me reconsider that last one, at least for Taiwan. Here's why.
First, Taiwanese education has been used from 1895 til present as a crude tool for imparting basic skills, ideologically conditioning the next generation to accept and support the current political system and its leaders and to inculcate an ethos of not questioning authority. Combined with a culture of harmony and filial piety this deadly combination has pumped out successive generations of homogeneous individuals who are adept at giving the answer they think the relevant authority wants to hear but not at being creative or inquisitive in many fields other than science.
Alongside the process of democratisation, attempts were made between 2000 and 2008 to alter the curriculum to make it more Taiwan centric - moves that are still being resisted and undone by the present administration. No matter which administration is in place, any future amendment to the educational system (which is predominantly conservative in nature) will be opposed by those who see political machinations as the motive.
For Taiwan then, maybe it would make sense to completely privatise all elementary and high school education and make it voluntary. In this way parents could choose the schools whose curricula and materials they agree with and be free to re-balance the allocation of study time between formal education and experiential education to a level that suits their children's abilities and aptitude. Schools would then have to decide curricula for themselves and determine which market they wished to operate in.
Why are will still forcing children to go to school to learn in an environment where everyone is limited by resources and time?
I believe that all Taiwanese parents have in their minds an idea of what tools their children will need to be successful built around their particular perception of the state of the economy and their predictions for the future. Furthermore, I think parents would welcome the ability to choose which school their children attended not just on the basis of the reputation of that school but also its curricula, ethos, working practice and educational emphasis.
In this way, instead of all parents being frustrated that the education system is not ensuring that their child will be successful in the way parents imagine they need to be, they can make the choice to invest in segments of education that are specifically targeted to their child's skills and needs. In essence, this is just an extension of the bushiban system to general education between the ages of 6 and 18.
Each new born could be allocated a government funded National Education Account (NEA) with a fixed and equal sum that would allow the parent to make a choice of school and structure of education. The funds in the account could not be withdrawn but only paid directly to accredited institutions the parent chooses. It would be important to ensure that the fixed sum would be equal to the total cost of potentially sending a child all the way through the education system in the highest ranked and most expensive institutions, including cram school classes. Being wealthy would then not ensure a child's success by having privileged access to educational resources. Since there aren't enough places for all children to go to the best institutions, parents who sent their children to cheaper institutions would have more funds left over in their NEA to pay for extra classes or courses more structured around building specific skill sets.
Schools whose curricula meet in parents minds a specific skill set relevant to current and future conditions would be most successful. Large schools could still offer standard subjects but it would leave more room for specialist colleges that focus on one subject area only. Additionally, it would give Aboriginal, Hakka and agricultural communities the funds to invest in education that is directly relevant to the needs, values and cultures of their communities. If no private provider is willing to enter a particular market, communities could be encouraged to form education collectives that would administer their own institutions.
Reforms to elementary and high schools could create space for the Higher Education system to be completely nationalised and many smaller universities closed. A proportion of the NEA would then come back to the Government through payments by parents for Higher Education. These payments could include a 3-5% profit margin for the Universities, allowing them room for growth (Foreign student intake and leasing buildings and land could expand this profit margin).
In respect of children having to go to different locations for different classes, we could transform existing schools into colleges with different departments and encourage the building of educational campuses in cities that feature a cluster of education providers in one safe pedestrian environment. Parents could drop their child off at one of these campuses knowing that they would spend the next 8 hours learning at different but proximate buildings. Additionally, campuses could feature parks and leisure areas to cater for all ages. Finally, there would be no need for compulsory education as each parent would be free to choose the structure of education for their child that best suits their needs in that community.
I have made a chart below to illustrate the possible variety of accredited educational provisions that could be covered by the NEA:
The economy is flexible and shifting which means parents have to be too. They need a school system that is also flexible and one which can identify their child's natural skills and build upon them.
