Wednesday, May 29, 2013

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 1st year, chemistry in 2nd year, physics and earth science in 3rd 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 -

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