Its top university, NTU, has fallen 39 places to 154th. Three Taiwanese universities (NCKU, NCHU and NCCU) have dropped out of the Top 400.
Is anyone surprised by this? Do those of you teaching or studying in Taiwan’s higher education sector see any hope that this decline might be reversed?
Hong Kong and Singapore both have universities in the top 40. South Korea’s best is ranked more than 100 places above Taiwan’s best. Why can’t Taiwan come anywhere close to emulating any of the other Asian Tigers, or any of East Asia’s strong economies, in higher education?
I can’t give a comprehensive answer, but I think compensation is one major reason. I would LOVE to move back to Taiwan from Hong Kong, but even after accounting for the lower cost of living, universities in Taiwan just don’t pay enough. It can be an OK place to start one’s career, but the long-term career prospects just don’t attract talent. Mind you that I am not saying Taiwan needs to just throw money at the problem. However, anybody in the developed world who has deferred their working life so long to get a PhD would have to take note of the pay being so low that they would be unable to save at a rate and amount that would allow them to retire or transition back to their home country without a huge drop in standard of living. It is very difficult to attract and retain talented academics, be they foreign or Taiwanese, if the pay is so low that it makes the job a dead end.
The top rankings strike me as ironic: there are many universities that are inaccessible to most of the citizens of the country they are in and that have grown strong through massive financial support in the context of reasearch related to military technology, because they are in a country that has been continuously at war for 200 years and has a habit of extracting wealth from the rest of the world, a country that nevertheless (or therefore) is charactarized by massive social problems, such as an enormous concentration of material wealth in the hands of very few, a large underclass without decent education and health care, and a political system controlled by companies that are (legally and illegally) engaged in fraud, theft, and gambling. Ironic, to say the least…
This is how much sense the education system in the States makes; there is an executive mandate that No Child should be Left Behind, and the way they assess whether or not a child is being left behind is by his result rankings on a standardized test.
Let me say that again. The US education system applies a test with bell curve results as an evaluation of a program that aims to leave no child behind. And there are no hordes and masses in the States who have marched on the halls of education demanding an explanation for this.
So yes, there are problems everywhere.
But Tomthorn is also right that they’ve likely levelized the results with their own system. Being the best ranked university in Taiwan is all that matters if Taiwan is all there is of the world. To too many, that’s the case.
And due to a culture of chabuduoism, plagiarism, and the taboo of questioning your teachers, there would seem to be little hope.
The US K-12 education system is rife with problems (made worse by No Child Left Behind, which as a side note, has also helped speed up the demise of some endangered native languages). But its higher education is among the best in the world.
From what I’ve read and heard about Taiwan’s education system, both primary/secondary and higher education, there’s a lot of serious problems. The very existence of the buxiban culture is a major symptom of a dysfunctional educational system, as is the noticeable decline in people’s ability to write well. For crissakes, this is a country where they have homeroom teachers in universities.
When I hear my clients describe their university classes, I get the impression that when the professor is not standing in front of the classroom droning on and on nonstop with no class participation, he’s walking around the classroom listening in on the discussions of students who are divided into teams working on team projects. And it seems that every class, barring math, language and PE, is like this. I’ve never attended a university class here myself, but this is the impression I get.
PS: after accidentally deleting my own post (made shortly after the post i am quoting) i am reposting it for the sake of reference…
Therefore the comments made by housecat and Chris have to be seen as coming after this message. Sorry about this accident…
Think about it… And do it the “scientific” way (trying to disprove the assertions)…
My dim view of the education systems of Japan and Taiwan aand the reasons for it are well-documented on Forumosa, so i need not belabour that point. But what about the education system in the US? Is it a showcase of anything to be proud of?
The problem you mention last in your list seems to be the worst especaially in the countries of east Asia, which are oddly enough among the most industrialised countries in Asia. Imagine what those countries could have become or could become if this restriction did not exist.
No kidding. And since Taiwan has inherited its education system straight from Japan, many people have suggested that it should be possible to find the explanation in Japan - but i think that is a superficial view: the KMT dictatorship and then the democratic government had the chance to change the education system but neither of them did - and i am sure they didn’t do it because they were not capable of doing that, meaning, because their way of thinking has basically been the same as that in Japan. So i feel free to call it a Chinese sickness.
I agree with you Tom and it is very sad indeed. They will just carry on as normal and nothing will change in this regard. As you know there are tens of thousands of students still learning basic English in Taiwan despite having studied the language for over twenty years. Rather than consider that perhaps their way of learning may need some modification they choose to carry on in the same way and spend another twenty years and a few million NT$. Then after 40 years of learning they have not improved much and even carry on learning English into retirement! Chairman Mao had a lot going for him when he said Chinese culture is holding back progress. This fear of losing face and the difficulty in admitting that things may need to be changed is a real bind on their development.
Pardon my ignorance, but just who are these people(Times Higher Education)? I ask because on a quick google search I came up with much different results.
I pardon your ignorance and let me cure it for you; from wiki and I quote
"Times Higher Education World University Rankings
Main article: Times Higher Education World University Rankings
From 2004 to 2009 Times Higher Education (THE), a British publication, published the annual THE–QS World University Rankings (WUR) in association with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). THE published a table of the top 200 universities and QS ranked approximately 500 online, in book form, and via media partners.[26] On 30 October 2009, THE broke with QS and joined Thomson Reuters to provide a new set of world university rankings, called Times Higher Education World University Rankings. THE has stated that academic opinion will form part of its new offering.
On 3 June 2010, Times Higher Education revealed the methodology which they proposed to use when compiling the new world university rankings.[27] The new methodology included 13 separate performance indicators, an increase from the six measures employed between 2004 and 2009. After further consultation the criteria were grouped under five broad overall indicators to produce the final ranking. THE published its first rankings using its new methodology on 16 September 2010, a month earlier than previous years.[28]
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, along with the QS World University Rankings and the Academic Ranking of World Universities are described to be the three most influential international university rankings.[29][30] The Globe and Mail in 2010 described the Times Higher Education World University Rankings to be “arguably the most influential.”[31]"
Actually the DPP tried but it was a dismal failure. The KMT are now trying again and I expect it will not be any better. Not sure really why but there is no lack of awareness despite what the pundits on Fcom think. Everyone knows the system is disfunctional. It was functional to raise educational standards to match the needs of an industrial economy but making that next step has proven too much.
Like this: gio.gov.tw/info/taiwan-story … wn/3-5.htm ?
I’ve heard the same insightful language in Japan - and the steeltrap hold of the middle and high school test system has not changed one iota.
Your rankings above are definitely biased toward Taiwan. If NTU is #12 in the world, then I’m Mickey Mouse. The TES is a worldwide ranking that seems generally, for right or wrong, to be weighted by the press/journalists as the most important. Since they recalibrated their formulas in 2010 to favour larger institutions, a lot of smaller schools haven’t done so well.
@ navillus : A couple years back, some Taiwanese schools found out how to manipulate certain Internet-based ranking systems. That’s how they were able to rank higher than all the universities in England. Do a google search, if you don’t believe me. But even so, getting #1 on some obscure university listing wouldn’t be worth anything.
I have taken a course at NTU and it was with out a doubt the worst academic experience of my life. I was so disappointed with that class that I nearly quit my graduate program all together. The “professor” started each class with “what are we going to do today” and then she would chat with the students about random topics. It was a Chinese dialectology class, by the way, which is a highly theoretical field, but we didn’t get past "in Taiwanese we say [enter some word] and in Mandarin we say [enter the Mandarin equivalent]. My other classes at NCCU haven’t been much better; last week a professor had us take turns reading articles out load to each other. The class is about the oracle bone characters (甲骨文), so really no matter what we do it’s still interesting, though.
Earlier a poster mentioned not being able to disagree with professors. This can be a serious problem; I had a negative experience with a phonology professor, who would not accept any research done after 1975. My final paper, which was 30+ pages long and took me three weeks to write and 2 months to research, received an 80%, when it was easily a 90%+ paper. Problem: criticized a scholar he likes and used some English sources.
Anyways, if it was up to me, all of the universities in Taiwan would lose their international accreditation.
And to the comments on US universities, I had a very good experience, and came in contact with some truly amazing professors. It was worth every penny (and then some).
They definitely care about the rankings. In fact they care so much about the rankings, it is having a negative effect on the quality of teaching and research at universities. Professors are assessed on the number of articles they have in international journals, without regard to quality. As a result, they often neglect both teaching and book writing.
Of course, Taiwanese universities have many problems, some of which have been mentioned on this thread. However, I don’t think it is fair to judge a university based on a negative experience on one course. I have done many courses at NTU - some are as you described (in which case I dropped them), but others have been excellent. Despite all the problems in Taiwanese education, it is hard to imagine the country’s leading university not being able to attract at least some outstanding teachers and researchers. Most of the NTU professors are US trained in any case.
I would advise asking your classmates about different teachers, and if you don’t like a particular course then drop it and find an alternative.
Or maybe your paper wasn’t as good as you thought it be. Students all over the world often fail to understand why they didn’t get higher marks. Quite often it is because the paper simply wasn’t very good.
And do it the “scientific” way (trying to disprove the assertions)…
