Culture versus Education System (Part 3 - What We Can Learn from Taiwan and Finland?)

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM TAIWAN AND FINLAND?

With current high international attention towards Finland educational system, I found out that it’s also no exception in Indonesia. Many articles write about the characteristics of Finland education system which is considered as the best in the world. With very limited point of view to only about what, when, why, and how Finland, those articles seems rather excessively write about Finland and discredit the other important things around the issues. If Finland manage to draw international eyes attention due to it’s high PISA achievement, how we should explain about it’s education system compared to other seven Asian high PISA achiever countries?

To made them easy to note, I will refer Finland education system as ‘relaxed mode’ and Taiwan education system as ‘rushed mode’. Eventhough our detailed discussion will be specifically about Taiwan, in general I also consider Taiwan will widely represents other countries in East-Asia region and Singapore since they visibly share many common culture and characteristic in their education system. Therefore, Taiwan will also represents another six PISA top performer countries from Asia such as Japan, South-Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macao, and Singapore. Taking Taiwan as an example also somewhat become more interesting due to it’s special political status compared to the others.

		Taiwan (Rushed Mode)	Finland (Relaxed Mode)
1	Educational Goal	Academic excellence	Academic equality
2	National Education Budget	Based on 2010 year data: - 20.12% of total government expenditure - NTD 159,895 or around IDR 52.5 million/student Note: 1 NTD = 328 IDR	- 12.7% of total government expenditure - USD 7500 or around IDR 73.5 million/student Note: 1 USD = 9,800 IDR
3	Tuition Fee	Yes	No
4	Curriculum	National standard	Flexible
5	Priority Set-Up	Yes	Yes
6	Rank System	Exist & heavily emphasised	Not exist, even school quality could be assessed by feedback from parents & larger society (no standard accreditation)
7	National Exam	To gain access to senior high school and university	Only to gain access to university
8	School Discipline	- Very tight with school uniform and morning reveille being the norm - Disciplinary control from senior high school level and above is responsibility of military officer stationed in the campus - Corporal punishment still practiced despite of it's prohibition by law	- No school uniform - Even shoes is not mandatory to wear
9	Study Hour	- Official class hours start from 7.30 AM until 4 PM for elementary and 5 PM for junior high and above. - Optional supplementary class after school hours available until 9 PM. - Optional supplementary class on winter and summer vacation. - Despite of it's supplementary status, those class in most cases become mandatory due to high demands from parents & teachers.	- Fewer school days/year, in average only 85% of school days in other developed countries - Longer break time, 75 minutes, compare to average 30 minutes - Homework amount will not exceed 0.5 hours time to complete
10	Cram Schools	Exist & highly popular	No
11	Preschool/ Kindergarten	- Preschool start from age 3 & often already encompasses physical education, art, science, and mathematic subject - Kindergarten start from age 5	- Start from age 6 - Learn how to learn, consist of only nature and social skills
12	Elementary School	Start at age 6	Strictly start at age 7
13	Teacher Value	Highly appreciated - Teacher must hold education background & provided with comprehensive training. - Based on last available data in 2005, starting yearly salary from USD 30,000 or around IDR 294 million/year = IDR 24.5 million/month. - National Teacher Day is celebrated in the same day of Confucius birthday to show ultimate appreciation of teacher profession.	Highly appreciated - Teacher must hold master degree. - Only top 10% of university master graduate are qualified. - Based on last available data in 2008, starting yearly salary from USD 29,000 or around IDR 284.2 million/year = IDR 23.6 million/month. - Teacher profession in society are in the same proud, if not more, of those as an doctor or lawyer.
14	Moral Values	Confucian moral teaching is mandatory in school, beside it's cultivation in home and society.	There is no national grade standard to pass certain school subject, but there is definitely national moral standard must achieved by student.

Based on comparation table above, we can see that the educational goal for both countries already different, one is to achieve academic excellence while the other is aim for academic equality. The main purpose of academic equality was highly supported by free tuition fees for students which means there is no restriction for students in all economic status to gain access to educational institution. Therefore, it’s reasonable for Finland to invest more budget per student than Taiwan and it’s not necessarily make significant differences in the education quality for both countries. I’d not conclude that free tuition fee is better or vice versa. Before excessively demand your government to make the free tuition fee, try imagine a student in a developing country asked a question by a teacher regarding his/her low test score and shockingly replies, “The school fee is free. I can always re-take the class without faced with the risk of losing money, then why should I study hard to pass the test?” It’s not a probably could happen case, but it’s actually already happen somewhere in my country since I personally know a teacher with those experience. Free tuition fee policy must be carefully considered before it’s implementation. It works well in a highly education aware & morally responsible society who will not take it for granted. On the contrary, student’s obligation to pay tuition fee is not necessarily consider as a drawback in the system. As long as the citizen is economically capable to pay, it will increase student’s appreciation of their knowledge and skill as a result of their access to formal education. Further, it will increase competitiveness in real life to ensure their education investment is not wasted. As for the economically incapable to pay, I’d say that the scholarship is still the best solution to ensure the education fund is invested in the most appropriate way.

Different goals indeed create different characteristics for both countries. After carefully compare point 4 until 12 in table above, hopefully we can better understand why I use terms of ‘rushed’ and ‘relaxed’ here. There is no single point in which Taiwan and Finland seems mutually agree about how to run their schools. They almost always do extremely the opposite of each other method. Therefore, I’d strongly suggest for a fun fact lover (I freely use this term to describe they who immediately embrace and demand a fun fact to happen without consider that a hard and uneasy part is somewhat still also necessary) to think carefully before claim. We cursed rank system, criticise national exam, discredit school discipline, disagree with long school hours & abundant home work as the main cause of our education system failure. Then, how could we explain a success achieved by a system with even tighter rank system, national exam, school discipline, and longer school hours?

If we are looking thoroughly into the list, there are actually three main characteristics that both countries commonly share. Those characteristics which could also considered as foundation of successful education in top of everything else are:

1.   Clear Priority Set-Up

We can see from point 3 that Taiwan curriculum is nationally standardised, while Finland is more flexible. So, how could those help with priority set-up?

For Taiwan government, of course it’s more convenience to set-up a priority since they hold the power to develop national curriculum. Taiwan’s priority on technology achievement could be clearly seen since it’s junior high school curriculum. Instead of struggling with pure science subjects, junior high school students has been given more study proportion in technology subject to introduce some basic technology in daily life. While each science subject only studied for one year (biology in 1^st year, chemistry in 2^nd year, physics and earth science in 3^rd year), Taiwan junior high school students studied technology subject for the whole three years.

Finland government only set a broad outline of curriculum that could flexibly adjusted by schools or even teachers depends of each school needs. In this way, they precisely encourage each schools to think and set-up priority for their own curriculum. It’s common for each schools in Finland to have a different curriculum that strongly based on local virtue. To make an easy example of local virtue, school in Kalimantan island may teach more about forestry while school in Bali island emphasise tourism subject in their curriculum. The other benefit of this method, especially for a large diversed country, is to reduce economic gap between different region by enable them to independently explore their own resources to improve their economy.

2.   Highly Appreciated Teacher

Teacher is a highly appreciated profession both in Taiwan and Finland. As we can see in above table, teacher qualification, welfare, and social acknowledgement successfully made teacher profession as something that one can be highly proud of. Teacher become highly committed to their job and undoubtedly increase the overall education quality.

3.   High Moral Conduct

What most amazes me about Finland education system since the first time is that there is moral standard as a substitution of grade standard. After disagree with common theory that Finland ‘lazy’ education such as shown in the absence of rank system, fewer school days, little homework, etc as the most important things that leads to high achievement, I can’t resist to try to look further on this moral matters. If not because of those ‘lazy’ arrangement, then probably high moral conduct is what really makes Finland enable to achieve it’s current prestigious position among education society. The logic seems true if we look at our previous example of how a free tuition fee policy could leads to a very different situation and result if implemented in different society. High moral people will deeply appreciate the generous government and take the opportunity to give the best to the society, while the opposite will happily take it for granted, low of appreciation, and the result is just like throwing the money out to the burning fire. it’s just lost.

Let’s take a look back to our Taiwan with it’s strong chinese cultural inheritance taken since the BC era. It’s been widely known that chinese society has become one of the oldest civilisation in the world. Many famous philosopher with their brilliant thinking still strongly maintain their position in people’s heart until today. To name the one that most famous with deeply rooted teaching implemented until now of course is Confucius (551-479 BC). His philosophy emphasised on both personal and government morality, correctness of social relationship, justice, and sincerity. Confucian classic textbook is a mandatory learning material in Taiwan schools until nowadays. Besides of school, cultivation of Confucianism moral values also happens in daily life, enforce at home, and assessed by society. One example of the most fundamental and widely respected value, filial piety, indeed assessed not only by society, but also by Taiwan government. A well-practiced filial piety could significantly increase one’s value in a society since country annual filial piety award, along with cash bonus, will be handed-over directly by president to the winner. Abandoned parents may sue their child since their rights to be taken-care by children in their old age is protected by law.

If Finland enforce student morality to meet certain standard in school, Taiwan does it through many life aspects. Therefore, parents role becomes critical. While student receive certain amount of moral teaching and abundant load of tests and quizzes in school, parents should complement them with more daily moral teaching at home. Those synergy between teacher and parents will enable student to achieve high academic result accompanied by high moral conduct. Only in this way, an academic achievement can be properly manifestated for the society, and of course country, well-being. Imagine how enormous a country will grow if each of it’s citizen is highly eager to contribute his knowledge and skill for community development.

One thing that we can learn here is whether the hard way like Taiwan method or the soft way as Finland does that we choose, we can achieve the same as long as we’re not abandon the most fundamental values. The target is always there to achieve, however the strategy to achieve is optional. It will also depends on current situation and condition. In some case, the hard way may be more suitable than the soft way, and vice versa. One question to consider, if national exam in Indonesian school really is eliminated as most people currently expect, would every schools and teachers out there consciously take responsibility to continuously improve their education quality despite of the absence of standard national assessment?

As parents, unless we’re capable to send our kid to study to Finland, it will be better if we focus on what we can do than on what we can ask. Embrace what we currently have, let our kid study with whatever curriculum they have in school, and nurture them with proper moral education at home. As Confucius said, “The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”

“To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.”

(Confucius)

I try to list down what are the most significant moral values as it visible in Chinese and Finnish culture characteristics:

·     Modesty & Respect

Finnish people embrace extreme modesty so that they will never boast their achievement, or even they will never mention it at all. In Confucianism, modesty is one teaching element called ‘rang’. Literally, ‘rang’ means let (go) which could be understood as to let alone and not to show-up our glory.

“He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.”

(Confucius)

“A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.”

(Confucius)

“The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue”

(Confucius)

By being modest, we also learn how to give more respect to the others. Being modest motivates us to seek more and more valuable knowledges. Respect others enables us to be open-mind, listen to others, appreciate new ideas, and honors a sincere teaching. Nothing can be better in preparing a student to successfully learn from their teacher compared to being modest and respectful to teacher.

           

“Without feeling of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?”

(Confucius)

Taiwanese learn respect start from home based on Confucianism xiao (filial piety) values. Respect and obedience to one’s parents is unquestionable. They bring this values from home to school and exercise the same filial piety to their teachers. As chinese popular saying, “One day as a teacher, one life as a father,” means once a person becomes our teacher, we must respect him/her not less than we respect our parents. In chinese language, ‘teacher’ frequently (mostly in informal situation) translated into ‘shi fu’ in which ‘fu’ literally means ‘father’. In more formal education institution, teacher called ‘lao shi’ in which ‘lao’ literally means ‘old’ and used in many language terms to show considerable level of respect, such as ‘lao ban’ (boss) or ‘lao gong’ (husband). In Taiwan school classes, even until senior high school level, students expected to stand up when teacher enter the class and say in unison, “lao shi hao” to greet teacher before the class started and, “xie xie lao shi” after the class ended to say thank you for the lesson. Not only limited to formal education institution, Taiwanese will unhesitatingly refer anyone that they consider already receive some skill or knowledge from as their ‘shi fu’ or ‘lao shi’ to show a great gratitude and respect.

“If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.”

(Confucius)

·     Integrity & Accountability

As a community that always carefully select their words and avoid small unnecessary talk, Finnish clearly shows how they value integrity and accountability of their words, and of course also in their action. They will not say a promise that they can’t keep not even for the courtesy purpose. It’s better to be silent than carelessly speak unresponsible words. In Confucianism, integrity and accountability is one teaching element called ‘xin’. Literally, xin means trust or believe, so it’s a matter of how to be trusted or believed.

“The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.”

(Confucius)

One more question to consider, have we ever blame an excessive load of exams as the main cause of disrespectful behaviour of our students, such as cheating? How many parents or teachers even silently support those actions? Then, why in another country with more excessive load of exams, the students still manage to achieve without cheating?

A heart with full integrity will avoid students from taking a dishonored short-cut to achieve certain target. Therefore, further it will help them to honestly assess their real capability and continuously improve it in order to achieve their goals. In schools, a little lack of integrity seems will not harm many since the purpose is only to gain higher score and rank. However, try imagine how much it will impact if those lack of integrity students become real society members, country citizens, and profesionally work at influential government or private institutions.

“If you look into your own heart, and you find nothing wrong there, what is there to worry about? What is there to fear?”

(Confucius)

Accountability guides us to always carefully think before act since we need to take personal responsibility of our every actions. Taiwan young generation sometimes need to learn this value in a very challenging way. Due to traditional value of filial piety, parents-child conflict is likely to occurs. A research by Kuang-Hui Yeh (Academia Sinica, Nankang, Taiwan) and Olwen Bedford (National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan) in 2004 International Journal of Psychology said that the most frequently occurs conflict between parents and child in Taiwan is caused by parents demands that is unmatch with child desires. Some child manage to sacrifice their egos and follow their parents will and yet still become success in their life since they make those choice and still must be fully responsible for it. Blame parents as a reason for their weaknesses is not an option in a parents-oriented society. The others manage to compromisingly or extremely escape from their parents influence in an even higher cost. They may faced with some period of unpleasant relationship with their parents. With all the pressures, however, they still able to gain ultimate success in their life since there is no failure option available. They need to prove that they make the right decision in order to fix relationship with their parents. That’s where accountability or personal responsibility greatly needed for someone to success.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”

(Confucius)

During my Taiwan visa interview, I strongly feels an enormous amount of pressure put on my engineer background. I’ve been asked two questions which are somewhat annoys me a little. The first question is why I’m as an engineer must work in a bank? It doesn’t seems engineer enough. The second one is why I plan to continue master study in social subject while my education background is engineer? Maybe it’s really Taiwanese norm to carefully choose their future path and be responsible to it. Once you become an engineer, of course it’s better, if not a must, to contribute your engineer knowledge and skill in related field.

·     Strong National Identity

Being realist, Finnish doesn't expect foreigners to  know a lot about their country. They will be pleased if a visitor is familiar with at least some of the milestones of Finnish history, culture, sports achievement, etc. Special political status of Taiwan which is frequently misunderstood as China province holds them together and make them even stronger. Both countries feels an urge and highly passionate to be known worldwide. Despite on how little they are internationally acknowledged, they manage to maintain strong national identity inside. In Confucianism, one teaching element called ‘zhong’ (loyalti) represents this value.

“He who exercise government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.”

(Confucius)

One thing that Taiwan and Finland commonly share is that both countries imposed a compulsory military service for their male citizens. At first, Taiwan compulsory military service period is two years, eventhough it’s keep reducing over time. Even before the lifting of martial law in 1987, female citizens also mandatory to perform the military duty, such as in nursing job, red cross training, etc. In Finland, the compulsory military service is shorter, only six months. Besides of create larger military capable society for national defense purpose, military service undoubtedly will also increase nationalism. If every citizen have a high nationalism and feel proud of their country, they will eager to do their best to contribute and imagine what will happen. I wouldn’t say that we must also enforce the same compulsory military service policy. We may simply start by teaching our kid how to use a proper national language and make them proud of it.

- THE END -

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Taiwan

http://english.moe.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=14504&CtNode=11430&mp=11

http://sitemaker.umich.edu/huangk.356/teacher_efficacy

http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Koulutus/?lang=en

http://www.businessinsider.com/finland-education-school-2011-12?op=1

http://www.greatschools.org/students/2453-finland-education.gs

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/country/fi-finland/edu-education&all=1

http://gelarriksa.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/pendidikan-terbaik-di-dunia-finlandia/

Culture versus Education System (Part 2 - Finland Phenomenon)

FINLAND PHENOMENON

The other country that I will discuss as a comparation to Taiwan is Finland. Maybe some questions start to come up on this part. Why should compare Taiwan, a small East-Asian country, to Finland, the 7th largest country in Europe which geographically very close to the north pole?

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a worldwide study by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in member and non-member nation of 15-year-old students performance on mathematic, science, and reading. The programme starts in 2000 and repeated every three years. Since it starts, Finland consistently secure it's position in the list of top performer countries and Taiwan rapidly catch-up since 2006, though both have their own strengh. Based on 2006 and 2009  PISA result, Taiwan most excel (gain 1st rank in 2006) and overpower Finland in mathematic, while Finland most excel (gain 1st rank in 2006) and overpower Taiwan in science. As for reading subject, Finland consistently score higher, leaving Taiwan behind.

Before the discussion of score and rank going too far, I must put it clear beforehand that actually I don't see a successful education system is worth assessed only by any series of limited subject test, include PISA. Successful education system must enable it's participant to contribute to the real society such as, but not limited to, economic growth & technology development in Taiwan case. Those contributions must be able to seen from the ability of a society, or a country in a wider scope, to be highly independent, stand-alone, rely on it's own resources to face the world challenges. It could be in a form of economic power, technological advancement, sport achievement, cultural heritage, etc or a combination of all those aspects depends on the country strategy to develop a highly proud nation. High international test score and university rank without real impact to the society is only a proof of disintegrated education strategy imposed by the ruling party, or government.

The reason why PISA result used to explain Finland phenomenon is because the international sudden attention toward it's education system after the very first PISA result in 2000 successfully placed Finland in top five among all three subjects, 4th in mathematic, 3rd in science, and 1st in reading. However, I will not exaggerately consider this fact as the greatest achievement since actually those PISA top performer list from year to year still also significantly dominated by Asian country such as Japan, South-Korea, China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Singapore. An interesting pattern shows here that from seven PISA top performer countries from Asia, six of them are East-Asian countries where the Confucian teaching is widely spread and adopted. Based on June 2012 data, Singapore major population is Chinese with percentage of 74.2%. With the widely known fact on how most of chinese society always put an effort to hold on their cultural values despite of where they live, I believe at least 74.2% of Singaporean is an confucianism aware society.

Then, besides of high PISA result achievement, what's another interesting fact from Finland? Here is the list:

1. Finland as the 16th freest economy in the world (7th in Europe) based in Economic Freedom Score 2013 which is derived from four main variable, Rule of Law, Limited Government, Regulatory Efficiency, and Open Market.
2. Finland rank 11th for Ease Doing Business rating 2013.
3. Finland is the 1st in the 2013 Network Readiness Index (NRI) based on World Economic Forum (WEF). The index measures the capacity of different economies to leverage ICT (Information and Communication Technology) for growth and well-being.
4. The international rating agency, Fitch Ratings, has affirmed the long-term credit rating AAA for Finland, with a stable outlook.
5. Finland top university, University of Helsinki, rank 91th based on The Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2012-2013.
6. Notable companies in Finland includes Nokia, the former market leader in mobile phone, and Rovio Mobile with it's widely popular games Angry Bird.
7. The inventor of Linux, Linus Torvalds, is a Finnish.

Historically from 1100-1200, Finland land was incorporated by Sweden and then, Russian. War and conflict (we call it Russo-Swedish conflict) due to both territory and culture clash keep occurs in the region until 19th century when feeling of nationalism began to emerge throughout Europe, include Finland. One famous quote as an expression of Finnish identity by Adolf Ivar Arwidsson (1791-1858), Finnish political journalist, writer, and historian, is 'Swedes we are not (no longer), Russians we do not want to become, let us therefore be (become) Finns.' The growth of national identity & culture feeling has lead Finland to declare it's independence in 1917. Finland once faced short period civil war (January-May 1918) after it's independence. The civil war occur between white guards (anti-socialist who continuously seek full independency from Soviet Union influence) and red guards (socialist who gradually view Soviet Union as an example to follow) and ended with white guards victory. Finland manage to survive World War II and maintain it's independent status which is, unlike Taiwan, fully acknowledged by international community.

The most well-known characteristic of Finnish nowadays is that they always put considerable weight on their words. They pick words carefully to express their feelings & opinions toward the others. They don't value small talk just to open or keep an ongoing conversation. A silence in the middle of a conversation is considered better than a small meaningless talk. Silence is also part of a conversation and they will not feel awkward about it. We can't say a 'just to say' promise such as, "We must have a dinner together sometimes," without really intend to do it. They will take it seriously and wait for your dinner invitation to come. However, don't misunderstand Finnish as an extremely serious people due to this characteristic. In fact, they are just a fun community, as we can see from their widely embraced sauna culture, who highly value accountability and honesty in their words. For Finnish, learning to bathe in a sauna comes as naturally as learning to speak. Finnish also embrace extreme modesty in their daily life. They will not boast their own achievement and sometimes they even will never mention it. Being realist, Finnish doesn't expect foreigners to  know a lot about their country. They will be pleased if a visitor is familiar with at least some of the milestones of Finnish history, culture, sports achievement, etc. They are aware that Nokia is often mistakenly thought to be a Japanese company and this misconception is viewed forgivingly but with pity.

(To be continued)

Source:
http://pisa.nutn.edu.tw/link_rank_en.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore
http://www.investinfinland.fi/articles/news/finnish-economy-and-business-environment/fitch-affirms-finlands-aaa-credit-rating/88-915
http://www.investinfinland.fi/articles/news/finnish-economy-and-business-environment/finland-tops-networked-readiness-index/88-902
http://finland.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=160036
http://finland.fi/Public/default.aspx?contentid=160064&nodeid=41800

Culture versus Education System (Part 1 - Taiwan Facts)

The basic question to start the discussion on this topic is how's a successful education system will looks like? What must be emphasised? Is it supposed to be the one with majestic school or campus buildings? Does it has anything to do with expensive tuition fees? Are the high rank education institutions always share the common curriculum and evaluation system which enable them to gain their current prestigious position? Whether it is because all the factors I've mentioned above or due to the other still undiscovered factors, I also can't guarantee an answer since I'm not an education expert. However, to be able to conduct a research related to this subject I consider must be very tempting.

What I would like to share now is purely my opinion by comparing education system in two countries. The one is Taiwan, a country in which I plan to continue my study, while the other one is a country which I believe will represents a very different education system with the previous one. The comparation will not blindly only based on the country education system as it's visible on the surface. I'll try to dig deeper into the cultural root that the country inherits since I believe that every human action is a manifestation of their mind which is formed by a set of cultural beliefs. In some region it's also strongly affected by religional beliefs. Therefore, some of brief history topics will also be included here.

TAIWAN FACTS

Let's start with a small discussion about our small island Asian country, Taiwan, or maybe some will more familiar with the name of Republic of China (ROC). Our international society sometimes would still put a pressure for Taiwan by labelling them with another name of Chinese Taipei, which Taiwanese actually prefer to never acknowledge this name as their country name, in their international event participation. We may recall it from the 2012 London Olympics event where Taiwan forced to use Chinese Taipei name & Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee dummy flag to represents their athletes. Due to this international political disadvantages, some of us may perceive a very wrong assumption for Taiwan as a powerless little country, while the fact is actually far from that. I personally know a friend which open her eyes wide and ask me, "Why do you want to study there? Isn't the condition there not far from here? They still struggling with their high unemployment rate, right?"

I always believe that successful education system will lead to successful society which is in this context a country. Let's see below for some interesting fact of successful Taiwan which will open our eyes & realise how absurd is above question.

1. Taiwan is one of the Four Asian Tigers along with Hongkong, South-Korea, and Singapore.
2. Taiwan gain 20th position of largest economy in the world based on CIA World Factbook - GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) 2012. As a comparison, South-Korea is 13th, Hongkong is 36th, and Singapore is 41th.
3. Taiwan as the 20th freest economy in the world (5th in Asia-Pacific) based on Economic Freedom Score 2013. The variable to determine this rank include Rule of Law, Limited Government, Regulatory Efficiency, and Open Market. 
4. Taiwan retained it's 13th rank in the world and 4th rank in Asia based on Global Competitiveness Report 2012-2013 by World Economic Forum (WEF). Along with four other ratings (3rd in overall investment environment by BERI (Business Environment Risk Intelligence), 7th in IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook, 1st in enterpreneurship based on IMD report, and as the 16th most improved economy for Ease Doing Business), WEF rating makes Taiwan a good choice for investment.
5. Taiwan provides the 9th best educational system worldwide based on Legatum Institute report.
6. National Taiwan University as a top university in Taiwan, placed 134th in The Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2012-2013.
7. Hsinchu Science Park has been called Taiwan's Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's largest technology corporation in San Fransisco, U.S.
8. The world's largest semiconductor company, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), provides it's product to high-tech companies such as Advanced Micro Devices, Marvell, NVIDIA, Intel, Apple, etc. So, chips for Apple's next generation iPads and iPhones are supplied by TSMC.
9. The world's 2nd largest semiconductor company also hold by Taiwan company, United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC).
10. Don't forget of some famous Taiwan brands such as Acer Inc., ASUS, BenQ, China Airlines, Chinatrust Commercial Bank, D-Link, Genius, Gigabyte Technology, HTC Corporation, UMAX Technologies, etc. 
11. JP Morgan analyst Alvin Kwock noted that over 80% of the world's notebook computer design is outsourced to Taiwan. (Boston World News, 2008).
12. Kingston Technology headquartered in U.S. is actually founded by Taiwanese expatriat.
13. Yahoo! and Youtube, also headquartered in U.S., both are co-founded by Taiwanese expatriat.

From above list, we can see actually how excel is Taiwan in the subject of economy and technology, which is of course can not be separated from it's successful education system. I've also noted that Taiwan also successfully develop advanced military technology, but I will not include it here for now and just consider it as a part of Taiwan's advanced technology. Then, how could an independent country with rapid economic growth and advanced technology development can't even use it's own official flag to participate in olympic games? To answer these question, we need to take a  look back to a piece of China history more than a century ago in 1911.

Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) as the last imperial dynasty in China has became more and more corrupted each day. While the imperial government seems to be very reluctant to change and people's hope of reformation is unlikely to happen, a scholar community led by a doctor named Sun Yat-Sen beguns to emerge. In the middle of mass dissapointment of imperial government weaknesses which compounded by inheritance of emperor throne by a 2 years old boy, Aisin-Gioro Pu-Yi (titled Xuantong Emperor), Sun Yat-Sen idea of Republic of China has been warmly welcomed. Start with Wuchang uprising in Wuhan in 10 October 1911 (Taiwanese celebrate this date as National Double Ten Day), Republic of China Government successfully established in Nanjing as it's first capital in 12 March 1912.

One decision of a leader will impact the whole team. One wrong decision of Sun Yat-Sen as the first president of Republic of China indeed greatly impact the country fate until these days. One decision that Sun Yat-Sen laterly regret was to handover his power to Yuan Shi-Kai (Qing Dynasty Prime Minister) as a part of agreement to let the last Qing ruler to abdicate. Just small thought, maybe the young age of the ruling emperor, 12 years at that time, is a Qing fortune since it is one factor that enables Sun's government to withstand forced abdicate due to humanity reason. Unfortunately, Yuan Shi-Kai secretly still desire an imperial ruler for China and declared himself as an emperor in late 1915. Faced fierce opposition & rebellion by his subordinates, Yuan decided to abdicate in March 1916 before died in June in the same year.

A power vacuum in ROC government has created chaos. In 1920, Sun try to unite the fragmented nation in alliance with China Communist Party (CCP) but unfortunately died due to cancer in 1925, left Chiang Kai-Shek that successfully seize most of central and south China under his rule with Kuo Min Tang (KMT) party. Lately, this condition triggers a civil war in China between CCP and KMT. I can't tell which side or what event is actually starts a war. Beside the fact that I don't really know either, I believe it's somewhat a sensitive topic and there is always different opinion everywhere. The absolute truth is that the war has forced Chiang Kai-Shek and his troops to flee to Taiwan island and start their new ROC government in 1949 with Taipei as it's capital. 

The man behind the successful takeover of mainland China under CCP rule is undoubtedly the famous Mao Ze-Dong. People's Republic of China (PRC) has established to replace ROC and Chairman Mao become the most influential national figure in China until these days. Traveler to Beijing will see his majestic big picture in front of Tian'anmen gate wall. With additional little fortune, you may also being offered for a local souvenir with Chairman Mao picture printed on it. I have a good fortune of course, therefore one souvenir shop keeper offer me a nice Chairman Mao keychain during my travel in Badaling Great Wall. Be remind to refuse politely if you're not interested in such souvenir since they will proudly ask you to buy. I personally feel a rather awkward to bring back a souvenir with national hero picture on it and vote for more scenery picture instead, so I didn't buy it. 

As a result of those civil war, the political tension between PRC and ROC still remains until nowadays despite it's gradually decrease over period. PRC always consider ROC as one of it's province and put political pressure to it's government in international society, while Taiwan actually already rapidly growth as an independent country. 

The next important event in history that create another gap between China and Taiwan and probably become one of my motivation to choose Taiwan instead of China as a place to study is Cultural Revolution. I actually very interested to do some web research and write more about China Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) since chinese culture topics seems always so fascinating to be discussed. However, I will just note the most important related aspect here.

To understand how massive is China Cultural Revolution impact to it's people, first we are demanded to be aware of what is the most fundamental cultural beliefs in, I believe, all chinese societies in the world. One values that still rooted until this modern era is what we called filial piety. Filial piety meanings described perfectly in a chinese character (pronounced 'xiao') which is depicted by 'old' character in the upper part and 'child' character for the bottom part. The combination create one unique character 'xiao' that be understood as child or young people obligation to exercise unquestioned obedience to their parents or the older generation. In this way, child education is start from a family as a society smallest unit and then elevated to the higher level where a filial child would become a filial citizen who must carry-out filial duty to their country. This basic Confucius (551-479 BC) teaching is spread widely through generations by inheritance of 'The 24 Filial Exemplars' book ('xiao jing'). One of chinese classic literature titled 'The Three-Character Classic' ('san zi jing') by Wang Yi-Lin (1223-1296) acclaim 'xiao jing' as the first book that a child should study before read other classics.

One of what Cultural Revolution does to China is shatter this belief and turn it upside down. The concept of 'family first and country next' somewhat become 'place country before anything else'. A popular song during the revolution enunciated, "Father and mother are dear, but not as dear as Chairman Mao." Numerous children in that period start to criticise and denounce their parents for offending Chairman Mao. They even accuse their own parents for guilty even if in the most case it will lead to death execution. Family unit crumbles and the whole country in chaos. When China try to rebuild it's shattered culture after 1980's along with the 'open-door policy', the rapid modernisation in that period had cause the presence of materialism become more teasing than a cultural matter.

What happen in Taiwan during that period is the absolute opposite. The little country indeed must also endure some hardship period after their defeat. Poverty period forced Taiwan to limit their daily consumption only to sweet potato instead of rice. Conflict with island indigenous people, aborigines ethnic group, must be resolved in order to established a fully approved government for the whole beautiful island. Martial law was enforced by president Chiang Kai-Shek since 1949 which is supposed to become one of the most important law to suppress communist power during the most intense conflict period between Taiwan and China. Taiwan almost 4 decades (38 years) martial law is the 2nd longest period in the world. Martial law has lifted in 1987 by president Chiang Ching-Kuo after the death of Chiang Kai-Shek, his father, in 1975. However, despite all those hardship period, Taiwanese remain conscious to preserve their chinese traditional values through their education system and, I believe, family teaching. Textbook of Confucian classics was used in Taiwan school since 1970. Despite of it's advance modernisation, Taiwan is one of the strongholds of traditional chinese culture at the present.

(To be continued)

Source:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tw.html
http://www.heritage.org/index/country/taiwan
http://investtaiwan.nat.gov.tw/matter/show_eng.jsp?ID=3
http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=179369&ctNode=413