Education in Taiwan is a controversial topic. With its test-based system, teaching methods, the amount of homework and political issues, complaints come from all directions. Taiwan is famous for its students spending time after school at cram schools, which means Taiwanese kids have a lack of personal time compared to those in other countries. The government recently released the “108 curriculum”, hoping that it could change people’s perspective about education in Taiwan.

The 108 curriculum guideline is Taiwan’s first curriculum update since the 99 version. There have been some slight adjustments over the past few years, none of which were very successful, leading to the Anti-Black Box Curriculum Movement in 2015.

This new format is for those who are below and concluding 9th grade. In principle, only kids who are going into 1st, 7th,and 10th grade will be able to use new textbooks this year since the publishers are still working on the format.

Government officials believe that this curriculum can change Taiwan’s education system by changing textbook content. Therefore, old textbooks will be disposed of in the years to come.

Here are some changes that you’ll be going to see in the new format:

1. Controversial content

There will be fewer calculations and straight forward questions in math and chemistry. Things that used to be taught at lower grades will be taught at higher grades. This may make calculating more effortless, but decrease competitiveness at the same time.

History is one of the subjects that people are highly concerned about. There has always been protests about history classes in Taiwan for a range of reasons.

One thing lots of people can’t stand is that teachers have to spend as much time teaching Taiwanese history (about less than 500 years) as Chinese history (about 3000 years) both of which are taught in a single year. Another reason is that it the government often changes the content, which has a lot to do with the leading politics of the day. In 2015, the government deleted some content due to political concerns which is one reason for the Curriculum Movement mentioned earlier.

However, the government hasn’t made any changes or given any response to the issues raised by the 2015 Curriculum Movement. Instead, they changed the format from annalistic style (which means it’s taught and discussed by dynasty), to theme-based (e.g. economy of one century).

2. More activities and interaction in classes

Many people, especially students, often complain about how much they disagree with the way our education system works. Students in Taiwan usually choose to stay quiet when a teacher asks the class questions.

This phenomenon is formed by the way teachers teach in Taiwan. Most teachers barely give students time to discuss ideas with each other, which instills a habit for them to always wait for correct answers. As students grow older, they will act timid when it comes to sharing their thoughts with the whole class since they are afraid of saying the wrong answer.

Luckily, the government has listed this as a problem to solve for the new curriculum. Teachers are looking forward to including more activities and interaction during classes. This means that teachers will probably talk less and give students more time to discuss in groups. Hopefully, this policy will change students’ perspective about sharing their thoughts in class.

3. Improving our literacy skills

Students these days don’t make reading a habit since they have their phones or other electronics with them most of the time. This decreases reading ability. The more you read, the easier it is when taking Chinese tests. To improve our literacy skills, teachers came up with a solution: put longer articles on tests. This way, students will realize the importance of reading since it’s really easy to earn points on most of the reading parts.

4. More elective courses

The most exciting change is that there might be fewer required courses for high school students. We will be able to choose elective courses (like language courses) that we are interested in.

Even though this sounds interesting for students, it is the opposite for teachers. Schools are concerned because there will be more teachers required. At the same time, they will have to find vacant classrooms in order to provide extra space for elective classes.

This also means that there will be fewer homerooms and fewer students each grade at the same time. However, students and parents will really appreciate this policy if it turns out to be a success.

5. Affects university applications in the future

Last but not least, this curriculum will affect the university application process in the future for those who are going to use the 108 education format. So far, this seems to mean there might be more handwritten answers than before on university exams. Also, high school students will have to upload their learning portfolio (which includes scores like club and elective courses performance) every semester. This will be one of the references for university application in the future.

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There is still lots of controversy, but the new curriculum could help students have a better future. Hopefully, the government will change the crappy current textbooks (which have a lot to do with the politics in Taiwan, especially history) at the same time.