Students in Taiwan have to face a ton of tests and assignments every day; the cramming system students learn is making them suffer from pain and killing them. Cramming, tests, and homework are a cancer on Taiwanese students.

Too much work and pressure leads to cramming culture instead of critical thinking

The way educators in Taiwan teach students is the most traditional – giving lots of work and pressure. When the amount of their work is overloaded and can’t be digested, students start cramming and eventually get used to the cramming culture.

Students try to memorize their work by cramming it all in their brains, but they are actually learning by rote memorization rather than learning to think and analyze. In the end, students are just studying to cope with the tests and they don’t actually learn anything. Giving lots of work and pressure which leads students to cram their work all in their brains is not suitable for every student and also is a not effective way of teaching.

Too many tests

There are way too many tests in Taiwan’s educational culture. Educators in Taiwan don’t make any changes based on test results; instead they just pass out hundreds of test sheets every week.

The amount of tests contributes to the cramming phenomena as it’s mentioned above; students don’t study for learning anymore, but instead just to cope with tests.

Tests also put students under extreme stress because there are just too many. When I was in middle school I often took three tests per day and when exams were around the corner it was no big deal to have five tests a day.

Cramming is not suitable for every student so naturally, not everyone gets straight A’s. But because of the huge amount of tests and the culture of cramming, students become convinced that not doing well on tests means they’re not smart.

However, at the end of the day, tests don’t prove anything. Knowing how to socialize and conduct yourself in society are the most important things to learn, not how to get A’s on tests.

Way too much homework

The crazy amount of assignments is another stressor that’s killing Taiwanese students. Most students finish school at 5 p.m. and some of them have to go to cram school. After getting home it’s about 8 or 9 o’clock and only then do they start doing their huge amount of assignments.

Almost every subject has one assignment each day and those assignments combined can lead students to basically no sleep and trying to get them done until 1 in the morning so they won’t get yelled at the next day. In junior high, I got only five hours of sleep on average and that made me unhealthy and not grow as tall as I could have.

It’s important for teenagers to get enough sleep but students in Taiwan don’t get that and it’s considered lucky for some of them to get a full seven hours in a night. Sleeping only six hours a day or even less is very unhealthy.

Having so much homework also gives students little time to do what they like. While students in Western education systems can take up hobbies and do what they like after school, students in Taiwan can only do assignments and homework.

—

All in all the most important thing I want to point out is that the education system in Taiwan is a mess. Students are not doing well under the sketchy education system. If it were an effective and successful system then there wouldn’t be so many students that are suffering from pain. The system is messed up and it’s a cancer on poor Taiwanese students.