Brian Hioeby Brian Hioe
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Photo Credit: Yu tptw/WikiCommons/CC BY-SA 4.0
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT and parent groups held events earlier this month to call for an end to the current practice of schools publicizing the test scores of students.
Specifically, a press conference was held by a student group composed of high schoolers from across Taiwan, called EdYouth. The other press conference was held by the Taiwan Parent Education Association. The issue received bipartisan support, with DPP legislator Fan Yun and KMT legislator Ko Ju-chin in attendance at the press conference by EdYouth to offer their support.
Namely, some schools publish the names of students who achieve a perfect score on Taiwan’s General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT). However, this move has been criticized by student and parent groups on a number of grounds.
For one, colleges are supposed to take overall academic performance into consideration, rather than just the GSAT, according to directives from the Ministry of Education. But the publicizing of such scores places emphasis primarily on GSAT scores.
Likewise, the publication of GSAT scores–even perfect scores–places severe burdens on students. One example raised by EdYouth was the example of a student at Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School, traditionally thought of as Taiwan’s most elite boy’s school, who took his own life after his test scores were publicized. After this incident, the Taipei city government instructed schools to stop publicizing test scores.
Namely, this led to a great deal of public pressure on the student. High schoolers who have perfect scores and then have this publicized by their schools must not only face the burden of expectation upon them that then results, but also cases in which individuals search out their personal information because their names are reported in the media.
The gate of the Kaohsiung Municipal Girls’ Senior High School. Photo credit:
The practice of publicizing test schools was also criticized for elitism and contributing toward stigmatization. One case was raised regarding the Kaohsiung Municipal Girls’ Senior High School not having any students who achieved a perfect score this year. To respond to the controversy that followed, the principal of the school claimed in public comments that this was because girls are naturally less competent at math compared to male students.
In comments, Ko of the KMT cited statistics showing that 64.7% of high school students experienced mental health pressure and that the largest pressure in their lives came from expectations about grades. Ko brought up that the rise of social media contributed to such pressures.
Fan echoed this, raising when students had their personal information investigated by netizens after their grades were published. Fan then went on to criticize the Ministry of Education as needing to take responsibility for the issue.
The practice of publicizing student grades, as well as the importance of competitive test scores, is long enshrined culturally in Taiwan. This has roots in Confucian cultural practices, that date to premodern China, and spread across East Asia along with Chinese influence.
In dynastic China, for example, the imperial examination was used to determine who would be allowed to become scholar-officials serving in the imperial governmental administration. Those who succeeded in the exam were feted publicly through celebrations in their hometowns with festivities and fireworks, while those who failed faced ignominy.
This cultural legacy is enshrined even in the setup of the government. The Republic of China has five branches of government, rather than the three branches of government seen in Western governmental systems. Apart from the extra branch of the Control Yuan, which serves as an oversight body, the importance of education–and specifically testing–is signified in that the Examination Yuan is the fifth branch of government. Recent calls have been to abolish the Examination Yuan and Control Yuan and fold their functions into other branches of government, however, seeing as the Ministry of Education fulfills the functions of the Examination Yuan.
More broadly, it is to be seen how to change cultural attitudes in Taiwan. Pressure on children over grades is still widespread in Taiwan, as seen in the practice of sending children to cram schools after class for further studying. And with parents continuing to fixate on pride over their children’s high grades, children continue to confront not only the expectations of their parents but broader social expectations.