Testing
Scott Sommers has written a wide-ranging and thoughtful post on education in Taiwan. The ostensible topic is globalization, but far more interesting to me is his take on testing. He argues that the prevalence of centralized testing in Taiwan is not a holdover from imperial times, but a new policy implemented by the KMT to deal with the primacy of Japanese as the language of literacy on the island.
Prior to 1905, tests had been used in Imperial China for the selection of public servants. This system had disappeared almost completely (Tien, 1972). One of the KMT’s first actions was to revive and expand testing to include a vast array of different aspects of life. The imposition of government-controlled paper-and-pencil tests to every facet of life in Taiwan assured that the government could define what legitimate knowledge would be. By writing these tests only in the Mandarin-language and by assuring they contained political information about China and KMT doctrine, the government/KMT came to define legitimate professional knowledge in a very political way.
Scott then goes on to compare the role of testing in contemporary Taiwan with other countries which rely extensively upon testing for educational advancement, specifically focusing on Canada.
The differences lie in who gets to write these tests, and hence in who defines what knowledge is important. As I stated above, in Canada and other Western states, it is the professionals themselves who write them. In Taiwan, while professionals do the writing, they do so following complex rules for content that are defined by government agents. What must not be lost is that this is a system established and expanded to control access to many aspects of life under the military control of the KMT. And that perhaps the single biggest aspect of life that military government was forced to deal with at the time of the establishment of the testing system was the lack of Mandarin language skills among indigenous Taiwanese.
It would be interesting here to compare Taiwan with India, where testing in English has been an important part of the bureaucracy since Lord Macaulay’s time.
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Comments
War and Language make strange bedfellows. a conquering power can impose their language and destroy an indigenous one. It can be a unifying force by creating a common language in an area split by many as in India.
However, isn’t it intriguing how in time of War, an obscure language can be used to limit access. The U.S. Army had this in mind when it set up the top-secret Navaho code-talkers who used an updated version of the Navaho language as a secret code to speak on the radio to pass secret messages to troops in the field. Many American Indian children were brought to special schools and forbidden to speak their native languages also for a political purpose. Many who assimilated into English culture did well. All testing was in English.
Singapore is actually a really good role model for Taiwan (even though it’s not a perfect role model).
One of the major reasons that most foreign corporations are still willing to stay at Singapore is the fact that all official documents/contracts are written in English.
If the Taiwanese government reall wants to strengthen Taiwanese students’ competitiveness, they had better start improving the quality of the English education at Taiwan (Not learning how to say “I love America” in English, but learing how to obtain the most up-to-date information that’s usually written in English). Most English textbooks used in Taiwanese schools are ridiculous. Seriously, if even American students have to learn grammar, how can Taiwanese students be able to master English without learning all the basic grammar rules???? Oh well, all I can say is that Taiwanese publishers sure know how to make easy money~
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An anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, 
I would like to see the government tests scrapped in favor of private testing. At the very least, it would make more sense to have a greater number of (optional) subject tests so kids applying to specific science or art programs could show off their skills.