I ran across some stats at the Ministry of Education
It’s the old story really - except it’s happening more quickly and dramatically (as usual) in Taiwan. In Ireland the older folks were fanatical for the kids to get educated. They wold have wanted to get educated (and the same goes for several generations back I would think) but of course in those days…
Now the children in Taiwan have the opportunities. If they are not grabbing them themselves their parents will make sure they are going for it. It’s seen as the way to get on (though as I can attest from my own bitter experience that is not always the case) and the old poverty is associated with ignorance (though I’m sure there were many poverty stricken scholars in old China). But as they say, if you think education is expensive, try ignorance 
It has to do with liberalization of the university entrance system, too. In the old days you had to score very high to get into almost any university or college; now virtually anyone who wants to go to “a” college can. They won’t necessarily get their first choice of department at Taida, but there will be some school somewhere which will take them, pretty much. Also, economic conditions aren’t as tough as before, allowing more students to study.
That brings up a good point. Just a decade or so ago, you could only apply to one university, and your entrance exam score would not only determine if you got in, but which departments you were eligible for (you could test into other departments later, but that
I wonder if the tertiary figures are as distorted as in Australia. 25 years ago Australia had maybe 10 real universities, then every half-baked teachers college suddenly became a “University” by changing its name.
On paper Australia has a highly-educated population of tertiary graduates. In reality there are lots of quasi-ignorant party animals with degrees pretending they are educated professionals. Just get the letters after your name and you get the job who cares that you’ve sat through 5th rate lectures and tutorials moderated by 9th rate academics recycling 15 year old material.
I resemble that remark. I also pretend to get good pay.
HG
Another problem is the high number of students who are getting graduate degrees … M.A.'s and M.B.A.'s are becoming like a dime a dozen now, with a lot of them being unable to find jobs when they finish their degrees, not to mention many college graduates unable to find jobs, or if they do, only ending making something like NT$20,000/month.
More people are getting educated, which is good, but the quality of higher education is becoming and more and more serious problem. Just one example, in the Graduate Institute of Chinese Literature at NTU (supposedly the best school in Taiwan), the majority of my Taiwanese classmates have no idea how to write a simple research paper … this was something that I was taught as a freshman in high school. I’ve asked them, and they said they’ve never been taught. Unreal …
[quote=“llama_lout”]I wonder if the tertiary figures are as distorted as in Australia. 25 years ago Australia had maybe 10 real universities, then every half-baked teachers college suddenly became a “University” by changing its name.
On paper Australia has a highly-educated population of tertiary graduates. In reality there are lots of quasi-ignorant party animals with degrees pretending they are educated professionals. Just get the letters after your name and you get the job who cares that you’ve sat through 5th rate lectures and tutorials moderated by 9th rate academics recycling 15 year old material.[/quote]
Sounds just like America. Probably Canada, too.
That raises the whole question of what “educated” means in the first place, doesn’t it? I certainly know of a great many quasi-ignorant party animals with degrees Stateside (and I might even count myself among those happy ranks). My grandfather was one of the most well-educated people I’ve ever known and he didn’t even go to high school.
I’ve met many college grads here who got through four years of college without ever having written a single paper of any kind - seems the multiple question exam is still de rigeur.
And this might be opening a can of worms, but it seems to me that the education level of foreigners here isn
That raises the whole question of what “educated” means in the first place, doesn’t it? I certainly know of a great many quasi-ignorant party animals with degrees Stateside (and I might even count myself among those happy ranks). My grandfather was one of the most well-educated people I’ve ever known and he didn’t even go to high school.
[/quote]
I suppose I mean “educated” in the sense that they can hold a conversation about their profession that is more than a catalogue of quasi-managerial bullsh%t and demonstrate some understanding of current world events, have read a book or too and can admit they are not an expert. Some of my tertiary ‘educated’ colleagues in Australia have dumbfounded me with statements like these:
“Dionardo La Vinci - that composer guy…”
“Stalin, wasn’t he that German guy…?”
“You live in Taiwan, cool - do you get to Phuket much?”
“What do you mean the seasons are opposite in the Northern Hemisphere?” etc. 
[quote=“Quentin”][quote=“llama_lout”]I wonder if the tertiary figures are as distorted as in Australia. 25 years ago Australia had maybe 10 real universities, then every half-baked teachers college suddenly became a “University” by changing its name.
On paper Australia has a highly-educated population of tertiary graduates. In reality there are lots of quasi-ignorant party animals with degrees pretending they are educated professionals. Just get the letters after your name and you get the job who cares that you’ve sat through 5th rate lectures and tutorials moderated by 9th rate academics recycling 15 year old material.[/quote]
Sounds just like America. Probably Canada, too.[/quote]
And the UK:
[quote]Education policy in Britain, both in schools and universities, seems increasingly to be founded on falsehoods and incongruous principles. The government repeatedly lauds the success of its education policies based on its own statistics: higher GCSE grades and higher numbers going to university. Yet this boast appears somewhat ludicrous when studies of student achievement reveal the students of today to be (on average) more apathetic towards their chosen discipline, less well read and producing less academic work of a generally lower standard. . .
In my own time at university both at Warwick and elsewhere, I have studied alongside an English Literature student who did not know what a noun was and a Social Sciences student who asked what the Holocaust was. . .
University education is simply not appropriate for the significant majority of the population. The cost to the public purse of widespread university education (the very reason for the introduction of tuition fees) should force us to accept that entrance to a university should not be a birthright. Rather it should be earned by the endeavour and ability of applicants. . .
Last month, a BBC documentary team filmed undercover at Southampton Solent University (formerly Southampton Institute), capturing discussions between academics dismissing student work as “crap” and “illiterate”, but admitting they would not be failed for the political and economic expediency of the university. One Senior Lecturer admitted, “If we didn’t care about how many students we had and how many dropped out, we would mark very differently. If we were really marking according to what we felt, we would drop a grade for everybody”.
This is a pattern sadly repeated in departments at universities across the country. Bureaucracy has forced absurdity into education. . .
Where once a graduate was marked out as distinguished, employers across Britain can no longer rely on any guarantee that under a mortar board lies an accomplished and intellectually curious mind.[/quote]
Warwick Boar
Observations of what people don
where are the bettter universitys in hong kong, taiwan o korea ? i like know for the next years, almost 15 o 20 years 
Ah well,
The struggles of competition do force us into a corner. Taiwan catching up with this world? The chinese have probably pressured their kids even more than they have before. Even in the west, the concept of childhood is only a few centuries old. Too bad we treat youth the way we do today.
Someday, education will return to something where we encourage free dialogue, free thought, creativity, and exploration. The Socratic method? That’s one way. When is it going to come back?
Ah competition. Too bad Darwin didn’t have his head up his ass and love Malthus as much as he did. During the time, there were other botanists who saw cooperation in nature.
marxists.org/subject/science … potkin.htm
For now, we see competition in everything in this world. Nice fictional explaination we’ve come up with. Our millenium has to suffer for it.
[quote=“gary”]Ah well,
Someday, education will return to something where we encourage free dialogue, free thought, creativity, and exploration. The Socratic method? That’s one way. When is it going to come back?
marxists.org/subject/science … potkin.htm
For now, we see competition in everything in this world. Nice fictional explaination we’ve come up with. Our millenium has to suffer for it.[/quote]
Its a pity that didn’t help them much against the Romans now did it? Or the Turks a millenia later. Even if the Greeks were so far ahead of their time intellectually, in the end Darwinism triumphed.
Regardless, all societies (even those involving animals) have required co-operation to survive… its just that competition breeds an improvement on the previous. You would be ignorant to think that it will disappear… what woman do u know that doesn’t wear makeup, what guy do you know that hasn’t practiced that line…
Whilst competition and cooperation seem contradictory I would say they work quite well together. Its just sad that some societies today have forgotten what it is to really be a society.