The New Cabinet's Homework (Part 2): Reform of Civic Education

Following last week's discussion on the "reform of the prosecutorial system," this week we discuss another crucial task for the new cabinet: the "reform of civic education." Why is this issue particularly urgent and necessary today? Taking the March 20 presidential election as an example, electronic media blatantly fabricated and stuffed votes during the vote-counting process. After the election, politicians and crowds gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard, disregarding legal regulations and stubbornly demanding that President Ch'en personally come out to verify the ballots and even his stomach. Furthermore, opposition legislators paraded a mysterious "Miss Fu" at a press conference to announce the so-called "truth" about the March 19 shooting incident. All these acts—some blatantly violating journalistic ethics, others contradicting expert forensic opinions, and some even breaking the law—have yet to prompt a single person to reflect or apologize. Instead, we see only mutual blame, attacks, and infighting among people. Are these not the exact portrayal of the failure of our civic education in the past?

In the face of this predicament, how is the Ministry of Education responding? According to reports, the Ministry held the "National High School Education Development Conference" in late April, during which two consensus points regarding civic education were reached: First, starting from the 2006 academic year, the three existing high school subjects of "Three Principles of the People" (4 required credits), "Civics" (6 required credits), and "Modern Society" (4 elective credits) will be merged into a single subject called "Civics and Society." Second, in the future, this single subject of "Civics and Society" will be grouped with history and geography under the "Social Studies Domain," required in the first year of high school (4 credits), while second-year students choose two out of the three subjects (4 credits). This will cause the instructional hours for civic education to plummet from the current 12 to 14 credits down to 4 to 8 credits, causing even greater concern and unease among the public.

Fairly speaking, the Ministry of Education's decision to abolish "Three Principles of the People," a subject that promotes specific political doctrines, should align with general societal expectations. However, its approach of drastically reducing instructional hours for civic education not only raises fears that "test-driven education" and "intellectualism-first" approaches will make a comeback, but also makes one worry how a mere four required credits of high school civics courses can possibly train students to develop mature civic consciousness.

Regarding this, most frontline education practitioners hope the Ministry of Education will change its course, increase the required instructional hours for civics courses, and include the subject in the scope of the General Scholastic Ability Test to prevent schools from neglecting to teach it and students from neglecting to study it. However, for a legal practitioner looking forward to building a sound civil society, I do not believe that the number of instructional hours or the inclusion of civics courses as a tested subject is the key to the success or failure of our civic education. In fact, if the educational authorities have no intention of starting from teacher training (allowing teachers with professional backgrounds in civics to teach), adjusting instructional content (enhancing students' understanding and behavioral practice of human rights, the rule of law, and democratic politics), and shaping schools into ideal civic education environments (allowing students to achieve subtle, formative effects through personal example and environmental influence), simply adding more instructional hours will likely be in vain. Furthermore, as everyone knows, exams dictate teaching, which easily leads to cramming-style education. This not only reduces the joy of student learning but also distorts teachers' creative instruction and the educational purpose. This is particularly unwise for civic education, which values both "cognition" and "behavior" and places heavy emphasis on behavioral practice.

Looking back at the first term of the Chen administration, the Minister of Education was consistently classified as one of the hardest officials to be. While we hesitate to harshly criticize newly appointed Minister Tu Cheng-sheng here, we still hope that Minister Tu and the new cabinet will squarely face the serious deficiencies in our nation's civic education. Through earnest and pragmatic reforms, they must cultivate modern citizens equipped with sound personalities, democratic literacy, rule-of-law concepts, national consciousness, and an international perspective (referencing Article 2 of the Fundamental Education Act on "The Purpose of Education").

※ Published in: China Times