Would a University Education be, Worth it, If You Can Lie Down and Sleep Through the Courses?

It’s a, “buyers’ market”, as there’s, not that many, students, and, the schools are all, competing, and that, is how it goes, but this is what’s, trending now, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Final four days until the college entrance exams, after the exams, another dilemma will immediate come to the test takers, what school, what major to select for themselves.  Last year the entrance rate dropped to 14,000, shocking the entire country.  This year, there’s, a mild increase in the number of students testing, but the experts think, that the declining number of college freshmen will trend on longer.  This does not mean, that the test takers will easily get admitted, but, they’d had to train their sights, to decipher if each and every school they’re accepted in, is actually, the right fit, for them.

To tell if the schools are good, this is a huge challenge for both the parents and the students, in the consumerist era, sliding the cell phones, an assortments of enrollment ads are there, wanting the rankings, you got it, the effects, sure.  But, which schools are the actual top ten?  Who’s the favorites of the enterprises?  It’s all say-so by the sponsors.  If you don’t comparison shop, you will, end up, badly, other than collecting the data on the schools from the online info packets, the students and parents need to head over to the schools to visit personally…all of these are, needed, investments.

Other than seeing the facts of the contents of enrollment offers of the schools, the “consumers” must also know the situation with higher education even more so.  For instance, the indicators of “freshmen enrollment rate” is a good indicator, that you must, get to know what lies beneath the numbers.

Before the start of the year, the Department of Education posted the enrollment rate of freshman in 2022, and certainly, it was, awful, the private schools that’s received no less than eighty-percent enrollment from the years before now, dropped to sixty-percent, close to half, the majors cut their enrollment goals in half in the public universities.  And, the close-to a-hundred-percent enrollment schools are now, walking with their heads held really high, and, at the end of year banquet, every worker received a huge end-of-year-bonus.

The Department of Education told us to NOT make a brash judgment on the enrollment rates, that it should only be used as a “reference”, this is, truthful.  The universities are allowed to “get the total enrolling students’ numbers reduced”, that way, it’d looked better on paper, but, most of the private universities wouldn’t do this, after all, it makes them look bad.

But, the rate of this increased by multiples of three this year, and clearly, the schools no longer cared about the reputations anymore, and they’re now, more realistic.  The declines in freshmen enrollment is fact, and, having too many openings are just, making troubles for themselves.  And, the Department of Education had encouraged this means too, “to only get the elites to enroll”, so long, as this rate exceeded ten-percent, then, the funding won’t get, slashed.

And, so, the students and parents will no longer be able to tell which school is better in reputation based off of the enrollment rates anymore.

The declines in birthrate surely is scary, a lot of the presidents of the university loved stating that crises bring about change in the systems, but the key is how these changes are going to happen?  The students locally are declining in numbers, it’s also, quite difficult, to get the foreign exchange students in, the talk of “customizing the universities” seemed easy, but it’s actually, quite, difficult, there are the professionalisms needed in the planning, the considerations of the quality versus quantity of education, the adjustments of the teaching staff members, we need the professional considerations in all of these areas, and yet, time still doesn’t wait for all of these means to be met.

Coming back to the origins, the universities need to downsize, and the planning, the developments still needed to focus on the present moments, and the futures of the students.  think about what sort of a core values the schools should have, and how the schools would fittingly, turn the students into people who will, contribute to the, society in the future, a school that will fulfill the needs of the students’ studies, and fitting to their expectations of their own, futures.  As the universities figure this out, and, with the resources fully placed, then, the school will be able to, fulfill the promises of the students.  And this sort of a fulfilling the needs of the students, will be what makes the schools best, in its own brand, and, advertisement.

And so, this is, a “buyers’ market” for the selecting of universities right now, and, this turns the schools into a commodities that’s bought and sold, and, to compete, the schools needed to, put out the best tricks that it can have, to get the students to want to study there, and this is, difficult, and that, is what’s currently happening in higher ed in this country.

On the Matter of the Degree and Employment

How the theories and the applications, must MERGE together, for the workers to have their places to shine through, so the industries will continue to, flourish, to grow stronger, thus, making the country even, better, but, the government still could care LESS, they just want to see the results in the end, and, they don’t examine the nooks and crannies, the nuts, and the bolts, that makes this, whole machine function well, the observations, of the honorary professor of National Tsing Hua University, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

A lot of people are now, complaining that it’s the education that failed our children, to the point, that when they started working they couldn’t, handle the work assigned to them.  This reminded me of my own story.

As I earned my master’s degree, I’d gone to find work.  Found an electronics company, my job is to design the circuit boards, but I’d not done that, didn’t even know what the circuits looked like, let alone the functions.  But I was blessed with a good manager, who’d taught me everything, and with his help, soon enough, I’d, learned to design the circuits, and started making my own, experiments.  Reason why I could easily catch on was because when I was in my studies at N.T.U., I’d done well in the fundamentals of Chinese language, English, and mathematics.  As I got the basics down pat, it was quite easy, for me, to learn something, new.

What you’d learned in the schools, can’t be exact with what the industries need, because, there are, hundreds of skills that are different from each other, and, no one university can guarantee, that the students become the jacks of, all trades.  But, if the schools (both in the technical high school levels and in the universities) are able, to help the students get the fundamentals down pat, as the students graduated, they will, surely be, able to, tackle the assortments of demands made of them in employment.

And so, my first advice to the theory-application differences is to try to get the students to hone up the fundamental, the basic skills.  If the means of education is good, then, surely, the students will use what they learned, to turn the theories into application.  I had, specialized in the vacuum tubes, and if I couldn’t transfer into the transistors, then, I may have, amounted to, nothing.

But, the enterprises should also, help the fresh-out-of-college employees, so they can learn while doing.  As the head of state from way back when, Sun became the head of Taipower Company, all of the Japanese engineers, and technicians from Japan all exited, the head of state, Sun employed the EE last year students from the technical high school in Taipei, for them to start working in Taipower Company, to teach them the skills.  They only had the most fundament conceptual theories of the fields, but, Mr. Sun educated them, to help them make the great contributions to Taipower Company.  And, as the Japanese specialists exited the country, it’d not seemed to impact the electricity provisions of Taiwan at all.

Another example, I have a student, who’d often told me about his work.  He is a software engineer, the system he uses in work, I’d never heard of.  But, he’d not had much troubles in using, because, he had some more experienced coworkers who took the time, to teach him the skills.  A company should NOT be complaining constantly on how it can’t find the qualified workers, the company should look at itself, to see if, it’d, taught the skills needed to work there, to all of its, employees, that way, they will excel in the skills they are already working with.  The company that hired my student had even, spent the money to get him to be trained in the newer technologies, which all goes to show, that this company knew, how to, train the workers, and keep the workers’ skills, up to date.

Training the professionals isn’t anything easy, the schools certainly needed to make sure that the students have the fundamentals down pat, the enterprises cannot expect that the graduates go into work, with all the skills that matched their needs for the job descriptions, but they need to, make sure, that the employees start, gaining more and more skills, to up their, competitive, edges.  The students from the Taipei Skills High School must’ve, helped the former students set up the good foundations, but, it’s, also, due to Sun, the head of state then, who had the wisdoms, for these graduates to put their skills to work, where they’d, counted.

Anyways, we should know, that the quality workers, needed to come out of the school, but, the industries, also, needed to shoulder up the responsibilities to get these students who came out of the schools, excel in the, specific, skills.

And so, this is on the combination of theory AND application, the schools need to make sure that these students gained the needed skills they are required to have, to work well in these, specific skills, and the companies that hired these graduates, also needed to, put the money into, the on-the-job training programs, to get these students who came out of these majors, to have the skills they needed, to work better in the companies too, and, if one of these is missing, then, the chain that originally flowed smoothly will be, broken, and, things won’t work.

The Field of Education Should Learn from the Industries

A NEGATIVE correlation, of the number of grad students getting out of the programs, and the quality of work these graduates from the graduate departments of the universities are cranking out right now, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Been following the developments of the industries here, and I’d found, that the advances are, something worth noting, and that it’s something that this country should be, proud of.  As China opened up its gates, there was the trend of the manufacturers’ moving the production plants overseas.  A lot of people believed, that the industries here in Taiwan would collapse because of this, but it didn’t.  Reason is quite simple, the industries started paying attention to the   quality of the products they were producing, for they knew, in order to survive, they need to up the quality of the good they’d, manufactured.  The electronics, the mechanic, the chemistry industries, etc., etc., etc., all took to this belief now.  Thankful for all the enterprises that are now, following this means of production, otherwise, we can’t ever, compete with other countries.

But I’d felt, that the education here, stopped caring about the levels of understanding of the students here.  For all these years, I’d watched the many reforms take place in education, and all of these reforms solely zoomed in on the means of changing the ways of students being accepted into a higher ed institution, I’d never seen the presidents of universities, the professors, or the head of Department of Education talked about the levels of understanding of the students on any occasions.

Surely, we’d made some amazing students too, but, everybody’s taking the ostrich stance, not cared about how there are, many of the students who are, lagging behind on the academic realm.  Since the government started implementing the nine year education requirement, they’d done away with the holding a student back system.  No matter what level the students are, they get to the next grade level.  We all know, that if a student didn’t get the fundamentals down pat, the courses that came later would be, useless in that they couldn’t understand the basics, there was NO way they can understand what the instructors are teaching.  But, no matter how bad the level of understanding, the students will get into middle school, high school, and even, colleges and universities too.

The universities are set up everywhere now, and we’re now seeing the reduction in birth rate as a trend, which then in turn, leads to the college level students’ not having enough of the basic skills.  On the subject of English, a lot of the college students can’t read the English texts, and yet, they’re able to, get into the graduate programs easily, a lot of the professors found, that due to the lack of understanding of the English, misunderstood the contents of the English theses, and yet, the Department of Education is pushing forth the dual-language education policies.  The end result?  Not only wouldn’t the students improve on their English skills, they couldn’t, gain the awareness of the knowledge of the specific majors.

The tailoring of the quality of good manufactured by the industries is multifaceted, because a good industry doesn’t just need the high-end equipment.  Reason why a company can manufacture excellent products, it’s all because the company is willing to put the money into the managing levels, to have the engineers work in the research and developments of the products.  And, all of these researches can’t yield the results in the time being, there are a lot of the tech companies here that are, more than patient, and with the foresight, for they understood, that rushing for the results, doesn’t yield a good product.  There’s also one more, the tech companies now all have the excellent quality control management, and this isn’t easy to achieve either.

If we want to raise the level of understanding of the students here, the first thing the field of education needs, is to zoom in and focus on the level of understanding of the students.  We can’t just have the forces, we needed the forces that are, excellent in what they do.  In order to increase the level of education of students as a whole, the government should put the investments in, set up a system of higher quality control, and set the sights farther, because we can’t, achieve this, by calling out the slogans or the mottos to reach this goal in education.

And so, this is on the importance of having the fundamental down PAT, and yet, due to the numerous colleges and universities that got set up in this country, you do see, how the quality of education is bound to get down, right?  And, the government is now, getting worried, that we can’t produce more professionals, when the problem is that getting into the universities to get a college degree is way too easy these days, unlike how it was back, thirty years ago, when only the best of the best can get in, and, that’s why, the “quality” of the students is going DOWN, because the quantity (the number of students getting into the grad programs) are getting higher.

The Trinity of Politics, Education, & Money

Commentaries, observations, on how the universities are now, in the pockets of, the DDP party, from the Front Page Sections, translated…

In 1991, the associate professor, Yang from Taidong Teacher’s University went up for the representative to the legislature for her area.  She was originally viewed as the one who would’ve won, but, someone ratted her out for working on her doctoral degree at the National University of Education, and she was, disqualified for the ticket right before the mid-terms elections for the nominations.

The background then for the legislature, was that the government feared that the “reddening of the former students” like China, all who was with the student status, shall not enter the races.  Thirty years back, the politicians fought over going to grad schools, like if they don’t get a doctoral degree, then, they would not have done right by their own, status quo, how the world turned itself around, so quickly.

The politicians are way too busy with the political affairs, and, getting their degrees “on the side”, it’s suspected, that they were all, paying into receiving their, degrees already.  Lin was found, that the two theses he’d written, had plagiarized someone else’s works, and this is still only, the tips of, that iceberg.  What’s different, was that two years ago, the individual who’d gone after Lee for plagiarism, now became, the “teams of guards protecting the mayor.”

like this…photo from online

The politicians are crazed in the studies of graduate schools, not only to gold-plate themselves as willing to learn new things, another reason is due to the system of testing from the ancient Chinese times; those who passed the exams became connected with one another, they’d looked out for each other as needed.  For the professors, or the schools, getting someone powerful as students in their departments and universities, this benefitted the schools, as well as the professors themselves too.  And so, the internet youtubers of the side wings, using the total number of fans on their accounts that are increasing, can also, get accepted into, the graduate schools.  The head of the N.S.A., Chen in his twenty-seven years’ professorship, had a total of 173 masters and doctorates, including three of the DDP’s mayors and county elected heads, four are now, legislators, along with many of the higher up government officials currently elected onto their posts, he certainly knew how to be the “government’s personnel trainers” all right.

More than thirty years ago, when the universities started employing the “flexible schedules of teaching and lectures”, the writer, Chang in his novel, “The Big Liar” described in precision, “you vote for him, I will award you with a degree, and he will hand me some funding.”  And now, seeing all of this, Chang had the foresights, even back then!  The legislative board member vouched for Lin, that Master theses are already, an outdated practice.  Can you, stand there, and listen to what he is, saying?

This just still showed, how these legislators, had people inside their pockets, in these institutions of higher ed too now, and, that’s why, everything is, corrupt, and there’s still NO way of changing this, because the DDP is ruling over this country right now, and, they’re still, covering their own members’, asses.

To Eliminate Plagiarism, the Appointed Professors Shall Be Responsible

On how the students learned to, cut the corners, to plagiarize, based off of these higher up government officials, examples, and that’s, just NO good, in research, and to think, that these younger generations who are, using these, bad means to get to their end game, will be, running this, god damn, COUNTRY, we are all, SCREWED here!!!  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

It’d been found, that the two dissertations of the mayor of Hsinchu, Lin were both, plagiarized, and this was, no surprise, there were, more hidden underneath the, iceberg.  Those who’d felt that their degrees aren’t shiny enough, and, they’d all gone to the graduate programs, and the professors, served those students with the connections, rushed to graduate them one by one.  As the incidents were found out, the professors who oversaw the researches hurried in explaining, and we’d known, that this, was what he was.  The pathologies of the academia is noted, and the degrees of master’s, and doctorates are, devalued.

Twenty plus years ago, I saw once that my thesis, down to the diagrams, was used in a poli-sci department thesis of a university, and the writer didn’t even bother to paraphrase my work, just, used my work as his, only switched the jargons around.  A master degree was canceled by the Department of Education some ten years back in a university, the plagiarism was from two years prior, the graduate of the same professors.  And, the Department of Education started issuing the retractions of the degrees by the years since.

Many yeas ago, several heads of departments, the higher up officials, got found to have plagiarized the works, the authors with the name on the title page, weren’t even involved in the writing of the papers, they got kicked off their posts soon enough as they were found.  Two years ago, a higher up government official, presented their English dissertations with a few professors, and the government officials’ names were first on the t8itle page, the first person’s name on the title page should be the one who’d, contributed the most to the papers.  He probably made some calls told the subordinate units to provide him with the data, or gotten the school some extra funding.  And these individuals’ names usually comes in the “contributors’ columns”, listing them as the first of the authors, it’s, quite weird.  And, a cowriter of the paper came to speak on the politician’s behalf too, said that he should be the first listed name, sucking up, to the point of, degrading the moralities of the research here.  Based off of this professor’s claims, the head of Department of Education, the heads of technologies, even the president should have their names listed first, because they allotted the funding, made the most contributions to the coming about of these, papers.

The president of American universities are only responsible for fundraising, they do NOT review the dissertations or the theses, when they got to their posts, they’d already, written countless theses, dissertations, why would they need to write more to prove themselves?  It’s sick, that the heads of the government departments are, reading the theses and dissertations.  It takes a ton of time to write a good thesis and dissertation, there are tons of paperwork that the presidents of universities needed to handle, they do NOT have the time to do the researches.  And, if you see a lot of the theses and dissertations, then you would know, that the authors aren’t, really, the authors, because these individuals can get the funding needed for the programs, and, everybody else loved being listed alongside the president as the cowriters of the papers.  This is the unwritten rules of the papers written by the higher up, and nobody evaluated this means, causing those who work under the higher up positions, to model after.

I saw how the schools would handle plagiarisms, they would cancel the degree, but, no punishments for the professors who are directing the students in their researches.  If after a dissertation is completed, and there are the plagiarisms found inside, then, the professor who was overseeing the research processes, hadn’t even, read it, or that he is too fooled, can’t even tell that the student had, copied off of someone else’s works.  And, some of the professors are in PR too, having taken in too many students, with NO time to watch over them one by one.  As the students were caught plagiarizing, the professors should also be punished too, that way, the professors would then, be more careful in the guidance, spending more time on the students, and the students would work harder, which will then, greatly reduce the plagiarisms of others’ works.

This is the graduation seasons, I’d been busy, reviewing over six student’s master theses, I’d reviewed each one five, six times, that way, would my students have the opportunities, the chances to, plagiarize someone else’s works?  “Professor Chang is way too tough, don’t find him as an instructor to help you write your graduate papers.”, as my students had, discussed amongst, themselves…………………

And so, this professor who wrote this article, IS exactly what the students needed to get their graduation theses or dissertations reviewed by, because of how tough he is, in checking all the resources, you can be sure, that the work that finally got published, is, next to, flawless, but hey, the politicians running this country (to SIX feet under) are cutting the corners, which is what gave rises to all those professors who also, learned to, cut the corners, and, it’s really bad, if you cut the corners in your researches, and get the degrees awarded to you, then, you’d basically NOT earned it, and what would be, the WORTH of that degree again?  Absolutely NOTHING, that’s, W-H-A-T!

The Global Perspective of Taiwan

Uh, this god damn country does NOT even have a peripheral vision, let alone, the global, perspective here, as the DDP still, keeps on, sucking UP to the U.S. here, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

The new version of the tactics of N.A.T.O. for the very first time, mentioned China, and, the department of diplomatic affairs commended N.A.T.O. on “showing that wider global perspectives”.  Meaning, that for the past, this regional defense organization made up of European countries, Canada, and the U.S. didn’t perceive the Chinese threats, and Taiwan being oppressed as serious enough, that it’d lacked, that global, perspective.  This is, the countries, getting ready for war, the mindset of, boasting the importance of this country.

What’s ironic, is the members of EU diplomats called out to the country, that the Tsai government’s “dual-language country” only focused on English, which lessened the chances of Taiwan’s getting noted in the other non-English speaking nations in Europe.  And the relations of Taiwan and Europe, won’t get closer, through the English language now being set as a part of the curriculum.  What EU didn’t state was, that from the angle of education, Taiwan is, way too far from “global”, mostly, “semi-global”, to even, “limited to the U.S”.

The countries of EU worried, that in the rigidity of Tsai’s “all-English education”, in the future, Taiwan may have a lower quality of education, teaching the European languages through, English.  But, what’s so weird about, learning other European languages, through, English?

In the policies of “Dual-Language Nation”, the middle school instructors are tested on their English abilities, the Chinese instructors don’t get tested in Chinese, but in English also; the college Chinese courses also get the teachers who will “teaching in all English” for the classes.  And, the countries of European Union will soon see, that the students here will learn the subjects in science, social studies, physical education, arts and music, and even, getting counseled in, English; what’s even more, magical, is that the students will be learning CHINESE, using English too soon!

In Taiwan, U.S. is the entire world, the global perspective, equivalent to the U.S. perspectives, let alone, education must defy China as well.  The country will, toss back anything in relations to Chinese, the ancient histories, and, the European Union should not mind, that the other European languages, get, slashed by this country.

The country IS, the U.S.’s, BITCH, because, this government continued to suck up to the U.S., thinking, that we can, rely on the U.S. to help us defend ourselves if China were to have a coup d’état of this country, that’s why, the education reforms are, completely like the U.S.’s, the twelve years, grade one through twelve, and that’s, just, messed up, the government failed to consider, that what works in the States, may not work here, due to the cultural differences, the differences of population makeup too, and that’s, just how shortsighted the DDP is, still sucking UP to the U.S.

As High School Education Became Netflix

How this new curricular of the education FUCKS up all the students graduating from high school right now, too many choices, not enough knowledge on ALL the choices, the failures of the reforms of education here, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

“The mainstream cultures are forcing us to enrich our résumé, and not get tied down by some place; it’d forced us to focus on the abstract skills we’d attained that can be used in anyplace, instead of being good at just one particular skill. …………it tells us, to NOT persist on any one thing seriously, and don’t be surprised when others choose to do differently.  Most importantly, it tells us, to keep our options, open.”

The above passage is out of “Dedicated.  The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing.”, the writer, Pete Davis points out, that the unlimited browsing became, a norm of every day life.  Netflix being a good example of this.  People often click the icon, and used the mouse to go from “Showing Now”, “Top Ten of the Day”, “Netflix Original”, “Documentary”, “Drama”, all the way to, “Surprise Me”.  Dozens of minutes flew by, and, after skimming through the hundreds of choices of the forty categories, people lost their interests, and just, turn off the computers.  And, the options from unlimited browsing, made us lose the abilities to focus on one solitary, task.

Looking closely at the reforms of education of 2019, the ideologies of “helping every student find what s/he is good at, and succeed in learning”, is quite, amazing.  The entrance interviews by the colleges, universities, are from tis group of recent high school graduates.  Through the written applications, the evaluations of the information packets by the professors, as well as the interviews, as a college lecturer, I have so many questions: does the reform of education of 2019, really fit to the needs of the current world it says that it’s supposed to?

The designs for the learning process profile platforms, are only a tip of the iceberg of the reforms of education of 2019.  I’m not talking about the uploaded data packs getting lost, but the interface of the system, along with the designs of the user experience, it’s directly opposite of what the core values that the reforms of education in 2019 had preached about.  And, once more, it’d shown, that what the adults tell the younger generations to do, they can’t even, manage themselves.

There are, many myths to the 2019 Curriculum Reform, including, the holistic belief of mastering everything, along with the free choices of the multivariate learning processes.

What worries me the most, is that the 2019 Curricular Reforms are focused more on the core values, instead of the non-knowledge craftsmanship.  Which one’s more important, it’s hard to decide.  And yet, looking at now, people are slowly, losing their ability to tackle one thing well enough.  And, the mainstream beliefs keep on, demeaning the values of knowledge.  And we can find that apparent, in the current pandemic outbreaks: how many lives had already been, lost.

And this is still due to how HALF-ASSED legislations of the government on the reforms of education became, it’d NOT transitioned the students well, just, pulled them out of their original state, and, stuck them into this new system, and of course, nobody can adapt, not the parents, not the students, let alone, the professors, but hey, that’s the way, we can, catch up to the western world, or so believed, the DDP government, which is total BULLSHIT!

Considering how long the west had been educating using their current means, and we’re just, switching to the new methods of teaching and learning, and the students’ brains don’t shift into second gear that fast, so of course, a lot of them are SCREWED over.

Not to mention the instability of the uploading system, like how it got FRIED in the central data processing units, and everybody who’d submitted their separate (and equally USELESS learning process profiles) got FRIED, because the central processing system got FRIED, oopsy daisy!

So you see, the system is still, way too, flawed, and, how are we supposed to educate our children in this, flawed, FUCKED (don’t pardon me here!) system, because the government suddenly got that idea of hey, we should get connected to the western world, and use THEIR ways.

Do Improve the Quality of Education Starting in the Elementary School Years

Everything is still, built, from the, most, fundamental levels, in the elementary years, and yet, this god damn government run by the DDP, only zooms in on higher ed here, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

I’m certain, that most of the scholars all noted the importance of education in the college levels, but what I want to emphasize today, is that we should, pay more attention to the education of children in the elementary years.  We are a country where primary school education had been, implemented, no children is not in school.  Even in the distant regions, there were, the elementary schools locally, and the buildings in these regions are quite, nice.  I’d found, that in the distant region elementary schools, the trees and the flowers, flourished.  But I’m also, aware that there’s a very large gap between the quality of education for the elementary years in the cities versus the countryside.

There’s the simple statistic measure.  Every year in the national skills exams, there are around thirty-percent of students who’d scored at least a C in English and math.  But in the distant regions, the number of students who received the grade of C or above is higher than the average of thirty-percent, the average of the sores of C or above is eighty-percent.  If we trace the reasons, then, we would come to the conclusions that the distant region school students fall far behind the students learning and living in the urban regions.

But that does NOT mean that the instructors aren’t doing enough in the distant-regions, you must know, that this country had no quality-control of the education provisions in the elementary years, and there would be some students who are, slower to learn, and, surely, there are, this group of slower students in the cities as well, but, if the students are from better-to-do backgrounds, the parents would usually find the children the help they needed, and can send them to cram schools or hire a tutor to teach them.  But, the children in the distant-regions aren’t as blessed, if the child can’t even write her/his ABCs, can’t spell enough number of words, then, the student would be lacking in her/his means of learning the English language, math is like so.

What’s important is, that the Department of Education doesn’t pay attention to if the elementary age students have all their basic level of knowledge down pat, letting the group of students, just get all the way, through the grades in school, from the first to the sixth grade.  After elementary, the student will enter into middle school, no examinations there, any child can get in.  Based off of the English classes, the middle school level English courses are nothing too easy, if the students didn’t get the firm foundations back in the elementary years, then, they will surely, lag behind.  The problems with the math courses are even worse, the kids would get confused by the positive and negative integers to start, and they’d had to solve the equations with one unknown.  A lot of the students in the equations involving fractions, would start making a lot of errors, reason being, they’d NOT learned the fundamentals of fractions back in the elementary years.

If the students don’t have a firm enough foundation in the elementary years, then, all the way up the grade levels, they will find themselves, without the competitive edge that is needed.  I hope, that the country knows, that the adults with the lack of this competitive edge isn’t due to the lack of intelligence, but, because they hadn’t mastered the skills in the elementary years.  And, we can say, that this lacking in tightening up the education systems, is exactly what’s causing this lack of competitive edge in the adults right now, and the children who hadn’t set up the foundations of learning may even turn into burdens on the entire society.

I hope that the experts in education don’t just focus on the higher education means, and just, set up the elementary schools correctly, by helping the students acquire the most basic of skills, and there’s NO reason why our government can’t, manage this.  Allowing the younger generations of children to NOT have the most basic of skill, is the most irresponsible actions of a government.

And so, this government still, missed the point, thinking, that offering higher education to all is what’s necessary, to up the competitive edge, without realizing, that if the fundamentals are set up firmly from the primary, secondary education years, then, no matter how higher up the level of education the person can get, it’s still, nothing, because they can’t do the simple stuff.

Priorities

A wake up call that this student was in need of, giving to her/him by her/his, professor, translated…

In the sunshine bright springtime April, the gentle breezes brushed across my face, the azaleas came in full season, then, went out in the school campus.

After work, I’d rushed off from the office, rushed into, another, battlefield—the information technology building of the school, to run the statistics of my thesis.  Finally, I’d, finished up to a point, collected my stuff, left, walked over to the psych department building, lifted my head up, saw Professor Chen coming toward me.

“Hi, professor”, I couldn’t dodge, so I’d, said, hello.  “What year are you now?”, “too many to count!  Don’t mention it anymore!”  “Look, you’re, running away again, come see me soon, if you don’t graduate soon, then, you won’t, graduate!” to this point in time, if I don’t file for graduation, then, my degree is going bust, what else is more pressing than my thesis, and my, oral exam?  I’d, remained, silent.

mentored by a professor…

photo from online

Finally, I’d, passed my oral examinations, with a heart full of bliss, I’d gone to see the professor, she’d told me, that she had a student who’d, flunked out every time she’d taken the higher office exams, because she was a perfectionist, always took way too much time, answering that very first question on the exams, to the point, that she had no time left to finish the rest of the test.  “I don’t have such troubles, I’d passed my Higher Government Office Examinations already!”  “I know, but if life is like the higher government office exams, would you not have spent way too much time on school, and work, to the point of not having the time to set up your families, your love, your health…………and even then, if you receive that perfect score marker for your school work, and your work, you’d still, scored a failing grade out of, life.”

I’m very grateful for Professor Chen for not just minding my scholastic performances, my professional developments, but also, the bliss in the other areas of my life too.  Thanks to her reminding me of it, I’d, reevaluated my own priorities, and, set up the priorities of my life that I was in need of then.

And so, sometimes, we get, too caught up with that set up goal of ours, that we’d, failed to realized, that there’s more to life than achieving that one solitary goal we’d longed to attain, and, at this particular time, wouldn’t it be nice, if we all had someone like this individual’s professor, pointing it out to us too?

But, not all of us, are lucky enough, to have someone like this individual’s professor, to give us our, separate, wake up calls.

The Heart Aching Measures of Utilizing the Learning Process Profiles

On how the reforms of education is, ruining the competitive edges, the education of the next generations of, children, written by an honorary professor, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

The major event in education, I suppose, is on the learning process profiles.  As I’d read through the documents from the Department of Education on it, it’d, ached my heart.  There are, as many as eighteen criteria for high school graduates to submit for their college entrance packets, of them, were the mini-thesis, the levels certifications of English ability exams, the math exams, the reading plans, and what nots.

What was upsetting to me was, I knew a lot of the students hadn’t gotten the level of understanding of education in high school, and, how can these students manage the mini-theses?  And, a lot of children who are from lower end of economics, can’t afford to take the certification exams in English and math, for the children in the distant-regions, learning process profiles aren’t, anything worth, looking into.  I know, that for a lot of these children who are raised in worse off economic backgrounds, they can only, ignore these things like the learning process profiles.

To stand out in the learning process profiles, a lot of parents had spent a whole lot of money, placing their own young into the cram schools, so they can understand how to write the programming formulas that are good enough.  And like so, for this group of children, they naturally, have an, outstanding learning process profile.  But, for children out of the worse off home fronts, they can’t, afford, to do these things.

To enter into university, the exams are, necessary, and the test results showed the students’ abilities, so why are we requiring them to write about what they’d, learned?  If a student isn’t fluent enough in English, does his written report prove meaningful?  The learning process profiles required the math skills exams verifications, this is, an addition, for the sake of those, gifted and talented students.

It’s nothing easy, to write good programs in the high school age, because, there are, the fundamental courses of physical science, math, English subjects, that takes up much of the students’ learning time.  If a student spent too much time of learning to write the programs, they couldn’t possibly have the needed time to study for the basic subjects of science, math, English, etc., etc., etc.  But what this country really needs, is still the group of youth that had their, fundamentals down pat.  Although I know how to write the programming, but I still believed, that if someone who can only write these written reports, but is bad at math, then, chances will be, that the person won’t be able to produce good enough programming.  For instance, a lot of the communication apps are all related to math closely.

The implementing of the learning process profiles, it’s equivalent to punishing the students who are not from well-enough economic backgrounds, because their parents simply can’t afford them to have that bright and shiny learning process profiles made.  For the gifted and talented students, the learning process profiles will only make them even more stressed, as they can’t possibly know, that if their fellow classmates could produce a better mini-thesis because of their parents’ help.  For the whole of the country, these learning process profiles, definitely, failed to raise the competitive edges of the students here.  What made my heart ached the most, is that for the children from less-economically capable backgrounds, the learning process profiles may be, one of their, biggest, downfalls.

And so, this, is how awful these reforms of education became, it’s basing the capabilities of the students on how active they are in their daily goings on, and for those children from lesser families, they simply can’t afford to go to all those, extra, camps, extracurricular activities, because their parents can’t afford it, and, the learning process profiles, it’d, made them lagged behind the rest of the more economically capable families’ children, and that defeats the whole purpose of the reforms of education, because the reforms of education should center around on how we can make the next generation ready for their lives, by putting them through the institution of higher education, and the learning process profiles does, exactly the opposite, because it basically runs on M-O-N-E-Y!!!