by Aria HsiaWith high school and college entrance exams just around the corner, Taiwanese students are clamoring to get their last bit of studying before the big day. Since their entry into elementary school, all those long hours of studying have been leading up to this climactic moment. For many, this exam could be the determining factor of their future — while some may view college as a mere stepping stone to success, for many Taiwanese, it is a label that will follow them for the rest of their lives. As Taiwanese students have a reputation for being extremely competitive, they rely on their secret weapon — buxiban — to make sure they remain the top of their class.
(Image Courtesy: 都市酵母) Buxibans (補習班), also known as cram schools, are after-school programs whose purposes range from exam preparation and extracurricular arts courses, to providing day-care services after school while parents are still at work. Two possible explanations for the name “cram school” could be that these schools try to cram as many students as possible into them, and second being that these schools try to cram as much information as possible into their students’ brains. It is important to note that first and foremost, buxibans are private institutions designed to maximize profit. Individual motivations aside, these institutions generally teach not for the sake of education, but for the sake of money. They offer supplementary education to help their students get a head start on the material taught at school, and also reinforce a rigorous testing regimen designed to drill facts and test taking skills into students, so the students are practically test-taking machines. Here is a major difference between a regular classroom and buxiban — instead of encouraging students to explore and practice their individual thoughts, buxibans rely on memorization and drilling hard facts into their students. (Image Courtesy: TVBS News) In an attempt to understand what teaching at a buxiban is like, I sat down with a friend of mine, Jacky Wu, who is currently a part-time buxiban teacher, while simultaneously balancing his studies as a college freshman. I was fascinated to discover the system and working relationship between individual buxiban companies, and the “teams” that manage individual teachers. Contrary to a regular company which hires workers and exercises full control over them, buxiban teachers are managed individually by their own “teams”. These teams are comprised of buxiban teachers and a team leader who owns the team and manages their class schedules. Often times, the team leaders are buxiban teachers themselves, yet is it not unusual for them to manage another job on the side, as in the case with Jacky’s team leader. Buxiban companies and teams are on equal standing — team leaders and buxiban company owners are essentially business partners, instead of working for one another. The profit is then divided from the students’ tuition — in Jacky’s case, teachers on his team are paid around 1500 New Taiwanese dollars per hour, from which the team leader takes 30%. In addition to pressures of competing buxiban companies, teachers must also deal with the stress and expectations from Taiwanese parents. What has happened is that buxibans often find themselves to blame when parents do not see immediate improvement. In order for buxibans to survive in the booming field, teachers often find themselves resorting to short term solutions of memorization and drilling, when learning should in fact be personal and based on practice. As I have never experienced buxibans firsthand, I decided to interview another friend of mine, Chantal Peng, who has attended buxibans since elementary school, and currently works part-time at the front desk of her old buxiban. Her experience with buxibans is rather tumultuous; while she can credit them for her successful entry into college, it is also a traumatic reminder of her teenage years that were spent cooped up in a tiny classroom. While preparing for her high school entrance exams, Chantal recalls spending up to 30 hours at her buxiban per week, from attending supplementary class after school to nine hour cram and review sessions on weekends. This is just an average case. From what she told me, some of her classmates practically live in buxibans. Here is what strikes me as ironic — Taiwanese parents wish the best of their kids by sending them off to buxibans, yet jeopardize their mental and physical health under these brutal and potentially traumatizing studying conditions. In addition to a student interview, I also had the privilege of consulting Chantal’s mother, Vicki, who offered her insight on the current buxiban scene in Taiwan. Just like her daughter, Vicki has a love-hate relationship with buxibans. On the one hand, Vicki admits that many buxiban teachers have a charisma and style of teaching that captures students’ attention and makes otherwise boring lectures interesting and refreshing. However, her praise of buxibans pretty much ends there, as she soon carried on to voice her criticism of buxibans with their endless advertising and business strategies. It appears that parents feel pressured to rely on buxibans as a last resort, in order to ensure the best for their children, albeit at the cost of their freedom. Taiwan is not the only country highly obsessed with buxibans — other Asian countries like Japan and South Korea also rely heavily on cram schools, thus it is not hard to guess why these countries have such a high suicide rate among students. I am in no way condemning buxibans, as I recognize the effort of buxiban teachers and their contribution to students — I merely disagree with the direction of which education seems to have taken in Taiwan. In Jacky’s instance, the reason why he decided to take on the job was largely due to the influence of his own buxiban teacher (now his team leader), who inspired him to use his knowledge and skills in helping other students. As long as teachers themselves are not driven by monetary temptations, I believe that buxibans are a necessary evil in Taiwan. a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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