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!!!

The Parents are Worried: the Six Years of Elementary Education, the Children May be Forced to Take Up the Extra Talent Classes

The reforms in education by the HEADS of Department of Education really FUCKED up all the children who are currently being, placed in the, systems of, education right now all right!  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

The entrance exams for entering into private middle schools became this “chain of entering into school”, which the legislative department intends of sever off, the Department of Education, stated, that facing up to the “limited number of slots, and too many students wanting to get in”, the private schools started, strategizing, changing the means of acceptance into school from one test to multifaceted, and yet, this made the parents worry, that the children are not faced with the pressures of doing well on just, one entrance exam, but, the entire six years worth of elementary education in learning, the pressures are only growing greater, not reduced.

The C.E.O., Peng of the National Parents’ League stated, in the past, the determinants of school is based off of one entrance exam, which caused the students to over cram in the cram schools, but, if the entrance of students into schools is by the raffles or based off of the locations of the household registries, publicizing the private schools, the private schools will lose their competitive edge, and couldn’t survive.  She is supportive of the private middle school’s turning the “one entrance exam determinant” to the multifaceted entrance considerations.

But the secretary of the Parenting Education League of Taiwan, Hsieh was against this, he believed, that since elementary, and middle school education are, mandatory, then, there’s the need to unify the system, the public schools can’t choose their students, therefore, the private school shouldn’t either, besides, if the private schools are really about education, then, they should NOT be selective of the students’ grades, otherwise, there may be the elementary school students, taking up too much talent classes.

what the government is, trying to do…comic from online

Liao, the president of the Elementary School Parents United said, if the entrance to schools is changed to multivariate, then, the policies should change accordingly, otherwise, it would give the schools too much right to choose which student to accept, that the policies, need to help prevent the children from taking up too many talent classes, that they lose out on their happy childhood years.

Liao also mentioned, that in the original system of entrance exams being the determinant of students into private schools, most dual-income families can afford to send their young into the private schools, but, once the means of entrance changed to multivariate, the total costs of cram school sessions, talent classes for the six years of elementary school years, will not be shouldered well by the families.

The multivariate entrance currently only applies to high school or college, not only is the entrance exam grades taken into considerations, the school grades are also, weighed quite heavily, with the considerations of the child’s awards in scholastic performances, in the talent competitions, etc., etc., etc., the community involvement via community services.

And so this, is how the education here, is, shifting toward the western’s means, but, this means had worked in the western nations, because it’d been used for ??? however long, since the start of time (maybe, how the HELL should I know!), and yet, this means of entrance is still all brand new here, and, the government just wanted to, flip and flop the system, and expect that the students catch up to the program, the government IS, delusional all right, in its beliefs, that it can, help us, catch the rest of the western world’s, steps, by, making the next generations schooling years, even harder.

The Levels of Reading Very Diverse for Children of Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds

This showed, the sharpened contrast, of how the families that are better-to-do, can provide their young children with more reading materials, which adds to their understanding of the world, versus how families in the lower end of the socioeconomic status couldn’t, and this extends into how the families are set up, separately, and due to this differences of availabilities of resources, the rich gets richer, the poor, become, poorer, and, illiterate too!!!  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Entering into the fourth grader, Huang’s home in Taipei, books are everywhere, from literature, to general sciences, the assortments all the way, up and down in the bookshelves, to all over the floors, taking up all corners of her home; on the other end, the distant regions elementary school, Pinewoods Elementary in Tainan, in a lot of students’ homes, the only available “reading materials” consist of the farmer’s calendars.

The sharp contrast of desert and oasis of reading.  The nutrients from reading that differed of the children in better versus worse socioeconomic backgrounds is preset.  Who will help the younger generations, to help them gain access of more books in the desert of reading in these children from less well-to-do socioeconomic backgrounds?

And so, this points out the problem, of how the learning provisions, the resources are unequally provided, to the children in the cities and distant-region schools, and due to the socioeconomic background differences, those in the lower end don’t have the time to read to their own young, they’re already, working too hard trying to make their ends meet, they can’t have the mind, nor take the time out of their working life, to read to their young, and this becomes, that vicious cycle, because the kids are falling behind, due to the lack of resources provided to them, and they can’t get out from under.

The “Fruits” of Education, the Coffees that Turned Up White

The encounters of a school instructor, on a graduation trip, on how the government, @#$%ED up, in its, attempt to, “connect” with the rest of the world, advocating the importance of English education, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

I’d gone for the room checks during the graduation trip I’d taken my students on, my students asked me with his confusion, “Mr. Lin, is it normal, for coffees to turn out white after I poured in the hot water?”

I looked at the wrap, it had “Coffee Mate” on it, and I was, stunned, as his, instructor… “this is, not coffee!”, as he heard, he’d become, “ecstatic”, chimed in, “told you this is, milk tea!”, and I don’t know HOW I should or, could, react to that!

This odd scenario, is a true story that’s happened, in one of the, most, prestigious middle school graduating student, and, it’d made me think, of the reforms of education the government is pushing forth, and the blind goal of, dual-language country policies, so ironical.

The dual-language education allowed the schools to hire the instructors, certified in English language, and so, instead of counting out the numbers in Chinese, it’d become, a recitation of the numbers in English.  And yet, the students can’t even read “Coffee Mate”.

and, can we, blame the student, for his, mis-interpretation??? After all, there’s the word, “Coffee” on the pack! Photo from online

I’d remembered the school song from Teacher’s University, that first line, “The foundation of a country of education, Teacher’s University ranks at the top”, and now, the “foundations” of this country isn’t even set, it got, reformed out of WHACK, by the “expert scholars” inside those, ivory, towers, plus the politicians doing what they wished and willed, short-sighted, only wanted what benefited them, “Someone else’s child will die instead of our own”, pages after pages, of whacked out public policies, and what’s sacrificed, was the futures of, our own, future, generations.  We can’t even keep the foundations of this country, education rooted down firmly, and only, tried to, embellish the externals, wasting taxpayers’ hard earned money, and, damaging the citizens.  Looking at the frequently occurring acts of violence on the news, most of the perpetrators are younger generations, and it’d, alerted us: here comes, the consequences now!

I hope, that the individual in power, who truly cared about the wellbeing of the next generations can pull that stopping plug now, to stop using the excuse of “we won’t go backwards”, to refuse to examine the fails of the current reforms of education.  Walking down the wrong path, and keep going down this wrong path, it’ll, only, trap the country deeper, into, its own, mistakes, to the point of, never, turning back onto, the right paths again.

This is how education is, FAILING this next generation, of children, and, we are, going to be, ruled by them some day, and, we’re, totally, SCREWED, because this @#$%ED up government, messed up the reforms of, education here, thinking, that wow, we need to connect with the international fronts, so, let’s teach and learn in ALL-English, without realizing, that HEY, this is NOT an English speaking country to begin with, and English is, a second language here, for all of us, who’d been, raised in, this country!

An Expensive Child

The upbringing of the child, how do we, train our kids, what goals do we want our kids to attain in school, to excel, to become, one of the, elites, placing them in private schools, or, do we, want them to, encounter, people who are like, and unlike themselves, so they can, gain a wider perspective of, the world, to learn that there are, others who are, different than them?  Points to consider, when selecting what sort of schools to place your children in, private, public, etc., etc., etc., translated…

I’d seen on T.V. that there were Chinese rich parents who’d, thrown down wads of cash to celebrate their children’s birthdays, turning the girls into, princesses, the boys, into, princes, with the parents, dressed up to the nines, surprising all the guests who were, invited.  From before, I’d seen on the news, that a seven-year-old Filipino girl, dressed in that custom-made present, with a crown on her head, with the full-service banquets, and fireworks on display.

There are friends in my circle, who, for the sake of their children’s, “only childhoods”, wrecked their brains on the celebration means every year, put on that large party for them.  Other than inviting the kids’ friends, also, showed everybody else, how they’d, cherished, the only childhoods of their own, young.

Actually, every moment of life is the only, childhood is deemed as innocent, naïve, and only happens once, but, when did these, childhood birthday parties came into being in Taiwan?

I was just past forty, recalled how there was the McDonald’s commercials on T.V.  Back then, the shop was up to rent, and the character will bring tons of presents to the child, with the burgers, fries, the cokes, the happy meals.

illustration from UDN.com

That was in the eighties, a lot of the parents had, weathered through the poverties of post-war, and, as the U.S. gave the aids, the economy started, looking, up.  The government encouraged selling the items internationally, and, gave us the newer concepts of childrearing too.  The older generations will never host these grand celebrations for their kids on their birthdays, but the American ways believed, that we need to, toss down a whole lot of money on the kids, not expecting, nor demanding anything in return, and this concept had, rooted, downward in us.

And yet, based off of the economics sociologist, Zelizer, “Pricing the Priceless Child”, we can find, that the children now are seen, as, “little angels” and viewed as, “idols” in their existence, naïve, with complete dependence, this is, unique to modern day society only.

From a study of a sample of thirty families in Los Angeles, no single child would take responsibilities on her/his own for the family’s chores.  Normally, the parents had to plead, and ask (and usually failed at), but in the end, the parents can only, start doing all these chores like the maids do.  Modern day society, like the anthropologist, Tam Ramsay stated, “infants rule”, the children didn’t have any freedom, but they could, get whatever they wanted, they asked, of their, parents, without, any of the, related responsibilities.

In “Anthropology of Childhood” there are massive amounts of data collected which showed that we are now, living in a world where, “Children ranked supreme”, believing in their innocence, encouraging the younger generations to express themselves, and, do our bests, to, satisfy all their needs and wants, and this reflected on the collective society’s ideals of the natures of innocence of young children.  And besides, this society became, the projections of individual families’ tastes and value systems, becoming, a duplicate of the caste systems, and makes the gaps between the varied levels of socioeconomic statuses hard to understand one another, with the difficulties of, communicating with each other.

My son is in the first-grade now, I’d originally wanted to send him to private school, but thinking back to my own younger years, being enrolled in the nearby public elementary schools, he will get a chance to encounter children from various socioeconomic statuses, various backgrounds too, that was, what I believe to be, “normal” experiences for a child, to help him adapt and live along with people of an assortment of, backgrounds, to understand each of his classmates’ personality traits, likes, and dislikes, instead of getting to know his classmates, by how much money their families have.

And so, this, is on the socialization of the child, do we want our kids to be elites, is that why we’re, placing them in those, high-end, higher-quality, private schools from preschool on up, by making sure, that they excelled in the academia, or, do we want them to, get interactive, with, an assortments of, various children from the varied backgrounds, from blue collar families, to white collar families, that, is the question to be, considered here.

The Distance-Education Classes are Burning Money, with the Students from Lower Economic Statuses, Fighting Hard, to Stay Alive, the Taiwan Fund for Family & Children Stepped in to Help Out

Call this, the, schooling, GAP if you will!  How the students from not-well-enough economically backgrounds are, suffering because of the outbreaks here!  Off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

Distance education had become the primary means to teach and learn due to the outbreaks now, comparing to how the children in the elementary and middle school years in the lower end of the socioeconomic statuses, the government helps out, giving them the giving them the technologies, but for the college students from the lesser m the lesser backgrounds, they can only, rely on themselves.  The Taiwan Fund for Children & Families found, that for over a year, a lot of the students in the college levels receiving the sponsorship told, that the original laptop they were using for their papers, are growing old, and couldn’t handle the means of online education classes, and now, they’d had to, come up with the money they needed, for the new laptops, to up the charges on their cell phone plans too.

The college student, Chang told, that the laptop he used from before, was okay for the research papers he had for university, but, as the classes, the lectures are all online, the webcam, the typing of his papers, multiple functions at the same time, causing his laptop to freeze up a lot often, making it hard for him to get caught up with the classes, and, all the money he’d earned from his part-time jobs, already went to pay for his living and school costs, there’s, not that much that he has left.

The manager of Taipei’s Taiwan Fund for Children & Families, Hsieh told, that based off of statistics, there are about eighty-percent of college level students who received the help, for paying their tuitions, their fees of living, started part-timing, but since the outbreaks, a lot of the classes went online, and it’d, caused the digital difference to become ever the more apparent, a lot of the students who are receiving the foundation’s help are troubled, because their laptops are, too old to function.

Hsieh said, that “education is the best means of getting out of poverty”, but for over a year since the outbreaks occurred, the college students from lower end of the socioeconomic statuses are, having it, harder than ever, especially in times of the epidemic, learning online became what’s trending now, it’d, added to the economic burdens of the students from lesser backgrounds, she’d called out to the public, to help support these kids on their, last mile of education, to help them, get on the starting lines, evenly with the rest of the students.

And so, this, is how the epidemic, tries people on all levels, because, there are those students from lesser backgrounds, who are, in school, and, with their laptops being, used for, five, six years on end the systems bound to, run slower, and, they can’t, catch up, because they don’t have the extra money, to get a new laptop, they’re, having it hard enough as is, making their own tuition payments, their rents, utilities, etc., etc., etc., etc.

The Hardships of School Instructors Whose Schools Closed Down, with the Student Onboard Another Sinking Ship

This would be, the domino effect from the reduction of birthrates here, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…

After the closing down of the Nanrong Technical University, close to seven hundred students were, transferred to other schools, and there are only the officeworkers still working at the school right now, the former applied Japanese associate professor, Hsu, on the matter, of the process of the school’s closing down, still felt, quite, upset, sighed, “the students were discriminated against, bullied, the professors couldn’t find teaching positions, and some even started working in the construction sites as manual laborers now, this is what the higher up officials in the Department of Education failed to notice and see.”

Hsu told, the school not running well enough, this is only, partially the reason for why the school got closed down, but twenty years ago, the government had, encouraged the setting up of countless community colleges, technical colleges, universities, it’s the fault of the government, and yet now, the consequences are shouldered, solely, by these, private institutions of higher education; Nanrong was located in the distant regions, hard enough as is to run and operate, and under the wrong policies, with the impacts of reduction in birthrate, it’d, become an easy target of the “Vulture Group”, hard for it, not to get, closed down.  He’d only begged the Department of Education, to change the purpose of the school’s properties, to made into some other functional space, “this is what the department of education can do for these private colleges and universities.”

The school’s original associate professor from business management, Shen told, it’s hard to find another teaching job, a lot of the professors were forced to switch tracks, some became tramping professors, there were the instructors from the school who’d gone off to China, some of the professors who went to China even got called back, to the school for owing of the wages of the professors on the payroll, but “the Department of Education only allowed the professors to sue the schools that hired them.”

He’d told, that back then the students from the Department of Business Management, with the help from the Department of Education, were able to successfully transfer to another school’s business administration department to continue their education, but that school soon stopped, enrolling too, “from one sinking ship, onto, another, sinking ship.”; there were the students who had to put in the commute time of one to two hours to go to school, and in the end, the students had to, give up on their, studies altogether; and there were the students who’d told him of how they were discriminated against, bullied by the professors at their new schools that “you have no right to come to our school to study in the first place!”

After the Tourist School of Taiwan stopped operating, the students set up a self-help committee, fought to get their own graduation certificates, their degrees, from their, original, school.  The student who set up the self-help committee, Fang told, that the Department of Education demanded the board to make the donations to the school’s functions, the board didn’t, the Department of Education just chose to look the other way, allowing the board of trustees of the school to do what they will with the school.

Fang stated, that as she enrolled back in 2018, there were six departments that had stopped enrolling the new students, a lot of the students of those majors “got in and filed for transfers to another school shortly afterwards”, but she was in the community college track, and wasn’t a part of the systems back then, she’d stayed, and now, after a few years’ worth of studying, she still can’t, escape the same fates.

There’s only the restaurant and hotel management department that remained at the Langyang Technical School, and the school decided to stop enrollment for the department altogether by the end of next school year.  The parent, Yang told, that this was what they’d all expected, they weren’t surprised at all, her child is in the third-year-of the five-year degree program, and can still graduate from the school before it closes.  The professors of the school told, that there’s no debts of the school, and yet, in recent years, it’d slowly, backed itself away, out of the education forum, that the school took care of the rights of the professors on the payrolls, so, the professors hadn’t strongly objected against the school’s closing down.

And so, this, would be, a bad sort of a trend, just like how quickly from before these technical universities got set up and started operating, now, they’re all, falling left and right, due to the reduced birth rates, among other factors too, and, the students who are currently in the systems had no other option, but either to stop getting their higher education, start working, or find a way to transfer to another university that’s, not going to close anytime soon.