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Taipei-Keelung region, for instance, each student was allowed to apply to up to 30 schools in order of preference. The process turned out to be a major headache for students and their parents as they tried to gauge, on the basis of the test scores, the likelihood of admission to specific schools so as to determine the order in which to list the schools being applied to. On June 20, the first list of admitted students was released, containing a total of 211,171 names. Some 63,000 of them, however, failed to confirm their acceptance due to dissatisfaction with the schools they were assigned to. The next step in the process was what was called the “joint special examination,” held on July 12 and 13, mainly for applicants to a number of “star” senior highs in the Taipei-New Taipei-Keelung area and featuring tests in Chinese, mathematics, and English. This round was more similar to Taiwan’s traditional joint-entrance examinations, with a maximum of 50 points for each subject. The aim was to enable the elite high schools to continue to recruit students of high academic potential. Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and Taipei First Girls High School, the nation’s two most prestigious senior highs, for instance, reserved 75% of their freshmanclass vacancies (1,100 and 920 places respectively) for participants in the special examination. A number of other star schools in Taipei and elsewhere around the island also set aside a high percentage of their openings for students taking the special exam. A total of 21,393 students took part, and release of the results on August 2 showed that 14,763 students had gained admission. Those who made the list happily enrolled at the star schools, giving up their places in the schools previously assigned to them after the first joint exam in May – and leaving those firstround schools with a large number of vacancies. A second round of applications then took place for those who either failed the special examination or were dissatisfied with the outcome of the regular first round. The outcome of 36
the process, made public on August 14, granted admission to another 26,144 students. But for some students in greater Taipei, the ordeal did not come to an end until one week later, when some public senior highs in the region completed recruiting students to fill the 500-some vacancies that remained.
Good-bye vacation Many parents and students complained about the protracted and tortuous admission process, which took up almost the entirety of students’ summer vacation. Many also objected that the design of the system was unfair, forcing many students to study at schools with lower rankings despite their good performance on the joint exam in May, often as a result of negligence or misjudgment in prioritizing the order of schools being applied to. Many students applied to study at schools with lower rankings, only to later discover with regret that their scores were sufficient for enrollment at more prestigious institutions. Another problem is that the determination of admission to a given school often came down to the grade on the composition, which is inevitably somewhat subjective, as there were too many contestants with similar test scores for the five main subjects. In the highly competitive region of Taipei-New Taipei-Keelung, for instance, many students gaining the highest A++ scores in all five subjects failed to be admitted to Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School or Taipei First Girls High School, only because their grade on the composition was at the second highest rather than the top level. Critics also objected that the exam system for the 12-year compulsory educational program aggravates the already heavy pressure on students, at odds with the government’s repeated pledge to lessen such pressure. In response to the extensive complaints, New Taipei City Mayor Eric Li-lun Chu announced on August 14 that the special exam for senior highs in his city would not be held next year. Instead, he proposed completing the
review of admission applications in one round, ideally before early July, so that students can still enjoy their summer vacation. He also suggested other revisions in the process, such as lessening the importance of the order of preference of schools being applied to, as well as decreasing the weight of the composition portion of the exam. Many other municipalities, such as Kaohsiung, echoed Chu’s proposal, pledging to also forego the special exam next year. In Taipei, Mayor Hau Long-bin insisted on retaining the right of Taipei’s star schools to conduct a separate recruitment system next year, but pledged that those schools would reduce the proportion of openings filled through that channel to less than 50%. Further, he urged the Ministry of Education to simplify the system by allowing the star schools to use the results of the regular joint exam to screen applications for admission. If those results could be announced early, it would eliminate the need for a special entrance exam and for a second round of screening to fill the vacancies left by students who give up their first-round places to attend elite schools. Under this arrangement, the entire process could be completed by early July. “The essence of our proposal is fairness and simplicity,” said Mayor Hau in response to local media inquiries in mid-August. It appears that only two districts, Taichung-Nantou and Tainan, will retain the separate recruitment system for star schools next year. Supporting the Taipei city gove r n m e n t p r o p o s a l , Ya n g S h i h - j u i , principal of the Taiwan First Girls High School, says “it can enable students to know much earlier where they will be enrolling, eliminating the uncertainty and turmoil caused by repeated rounds of recruitment as schools seek to fill vacancies.” For its part, the Ministry of Education has also pledged to greatly simplify and shorten the entire process next year. Wu Se-hwa, the newly appointed minister of education, points out that next year the special exam will take place in mid-June, following the joint exam in
taiwan business topics • october 2014
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2014/10/7 11:36:25 PM