What does he want to achieve in
life?
Was he the
one to decide which senior high school he should go to? No! It was his parents,
especially his mother, who picked up the one for him, and his scores on the
entrance examination also led him to this senior high school.
The senior
high school he went to is affiliated to the university and runs successfully. In
addition, there are many part-time students studying on weekends at affiliated
college of continuing education to pursue a bachelor’s degree.
In the beginning, his parents were distraught with worry about this senior high school, a coeducational high school.
They thought that he might fall in love
with or get a crush on a girl, whom he studied with or met on campus. They
believed he was still young and should focus on his studying before going to a university
with a fine reputation.
What his parents worried about came from knowing popularity he gained among his friends. He was not bookish, but he didn’t slack off on his homework either. He wasn’t like some of his classmates, who spent time just eating and watching TV at home on weekends. He considered himself a movie buff.
He made time for a gathering with his friends including female friends, whom he kept at a friendship level. He didn’t like to add his two cents to everything when he was with his friends, but he didn’t make plans based on what he was suggested either. There wasn’t a problem about cliques at camp or bullying in his school. It isn’t a surprise that these kinds of things some students might encounter accidentally.
His computer
skills seemed to be in high demand later in a job market, which surely promised
him a better-than-good chance to study in a computer field at higher education.
Besides, he never manipulated his
computer skills to do things like what web posse might do. He
wasn’t a phubber either, indulging in a virtual online world. In addition, he wasn’t one of those who liked
to use their body languages to express how they were feeling, like making air
quote marks* with his hands when he gave a speech. But, he acted like most of the young people who have their keypals with whom he regularly exchanged e-mails for fun.
It's believed that he would be one who equips himself in the future with success and self-actualization, approaching with every step of the whole way up. And, he is also expected to fill his goals and promises he's given to his parents.
Schooling in
Taiwan
The academic year for all levels of school operates on the semester
system, and runs generally from September to June. There are two semesters in
an academic year. In general, the first semester starts in September and ends
at the end of January, and the second semester starts at the end of February
and ends at the end of June.
The Ministry of Education has been encouraging universities to establish
three semesters a year so that undergraduates can graduate in three years if
they take summer courses (China Times News, May 8, 1997).
The basic qualification in higher education is the four-year bachelor’s
degree. However, a bachelor’s degree in medical programs requires a minimum
of seven years. A master’s degree requires a further two years of full-time study. Doctorates require a minimum of two years of
full-time study following a master’s degree.
Most doctoral programs take a long time between three and six years.
Junior high school students in their third year have the pressure of
intensive preparation to go to a prestigious senior high school. The third year
for senior high school students is also crucial because they are facing a
complicated system to get on their higher education. Students in both junior
high school and in senior high school may leave home at 7:00 or so and not
return home until 19:00 because some might go off for after-school tutoring or very late
until 21:30 or 22:00.
On the surface, an opportunity for a student seems pretty fair.
Recruiting students at the levels of senior high school and university,
however, is more complex than it appears at first sight. For senior high school
students, once the major of studying is chosen at the age of 15 or so, it is
very difficult to alter it. How students choose their sections, engineering,
medical sciences and humanities. The section students choose mostly relies on
the parents to help them. Generally, female students are kept in the humanities
at senior high school level, due to the stereotypical thinking of people. That
leads them into the limited future job marketing after graduation from higher
education.
In addition, the ways of recruiting students especially at university
level remain some controversial factors about fairness. The fact seems that a
structural constraint prevents poor students from equal access to a university
guaranteeing a bright future.
Gender segregation
still exists in Taiwan
(updated on International Women's Day, 2017)
(updated on International Women's Day, 2017)
The Research Center of Global Views
Magazine conducted a
research from 01/17 to 01/20 this year and has released the results today March 8, International Women's Day (The Absence of Females -- A key to Taiwan's Science Competitiveness, Global
Views Magazine, March 8, 2017, https://www.gvm.com.tw).
To explore what the parents believe in, 216 parents of
108 boys and 108 girls respectively, who are senior high school students. In
addition to those parents, there were 853 more interviews in this research at the age of
20 and above. The total interviewees are 1069 chosen at random living
in 22 different cities in Taiwan, who were given the same questionnaires about
abilities of boys and girls, or choices of major and career for women and men.
The interviews were conducted through Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing, CATI,
followed by data collecting and analyzing.
The results
show that 70% of the interviewees disagreed with the statement that girls are inappropriate
for majoring in engineering while there were 16.1% of them agreed with this. It
is interesting that the younger, especially at the ages between 20 and 29, the more
flexible to consider it is suitable for women to study the untraditional fields
like science. On the contrary, the interviewees at the age of 60 and above tended
towards this belief.
The conclusion has revealed today, yes on International Women's Day in 2017, that women are expected to be a teacher, a
nurse or an accountant while men are an electrical engineer (46.3%), a business
manager (22.2%) or a science researcher (18.5%). Among the interviewees, the parents of senior high
school students also give some serious thought that working in a science field
for a woman would be a real challenge that she has to consume most of time and
energy in achievement. Matter-of-factly, women with
a full-time job are still expected to fulfill the roles as a wife and a care-giver,
not supposed to dedicate herself to her own career. It accurately explains why
the absence of women in science fields exists in Taiwan.
It
seems ironic International Women’s Day hasn't been mentioned in the media or by our first
woman President Tsai Ing-wen. She hasn’t made a public speech either about women’s
struggles or efforts like how hard it was for her to approach the highest administration
position as a President to rule Taiwan since last year or encouraged her female comrades. Our President today
is very quiet on this special day she might forget about. (Yesterday, she did attend the conference of International Women's Day in Taipei, who gave a speech, which appeared very official but superficial without enthusiasm like one of her presidential election speeches to attract attentions' of the media to broadcast. (revised on March 9, 2017)
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