Whither Aboriginal Education?

A Seediq woman teaching her mother tongue to school children (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Publication Date：08/01/2007
Byline：

For many, education is a way to success and self-realization. For Taiwan's aborigines, education is also vital to keeping their traditional cultures alive. Have current government policies been successful in helping aborigines achieve both these goals? What more can and should be done? To find out, Taiwan Review recently hosted a seminar on the topic. The invited panel members were Legislator Kung Wen-chi; Rutamekan Garuljigulj, deputy director of the Department of Education and Culture of the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP); Sun Ta-chuan, a former CIP vice chairman and now associate professor of Graduate Institute of Taiwanese Literature at National Chengchi University; and Wang Ming-huey, associate professor in National Taiwan Normal University's Department of Geography. The following is an excerpt of the questions and the guests' remarks.

TR: What are the pressing issues regarding aboriginal education that need to be addressed?

Kung Wen-chi (Photo by Chang Su-ching)

Kung Wen-chi: I think the government has put a lot of effort into aboriginal education. Adding points to school admission examination scores and government funding for overseas studies have been benefiting indigenous students. The government has also been encouraging the teaching of indigenous languages. Students who can speak their native languages can also get points added to their exam scores. The establishment of the College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University is also encouraging. It has more or less changed what was a Han-specific education to one that is more grounded in the indigenous culture.

The most pressing issue, in my opinion, is the lack of enforcement of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act and the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples. Take the merging or closing down of schools in remote areas for example. The law states that such merging or closing down needs to get approval from a majority of the tribespeople over 20 years of age in the area. In reality this is not the case. Also, the law specifies that the budget for indigenous education should be no less than 1.2 percent of the country's total education budget, but I believe this is not being met, resulting in a lack of resources.

In addition, the government has left much to be desired in terms of aboriginal talent recruitment. Qualified indigenous people, for example, are not given priority in the awarding of school principal posts in aboriginal areas. The Council of Indigenous Peoples should have played a more active role in this. It is my understanding that many indigenous people who have received higher education cannot find a job. The higher the education, the greater the chance of unemployment, as they say.

Sun Ta-chuan: There is a difference between education for and about the indigenous peoples. The former treated aboriginal students as any other students in the regular education system, but the latter is about the indigenous peoples' own languages and cultural heritages. Before the 1990s, education about indigenous peoples had not had much attention and most policies related to aboriginal education, such as adding points to aboriginal students' scores in entrance examinations, had been on a supplementary basis. In fact, the sole purpose of education at the time was to build nationalism.

Since the 1990s, Taiwan started to look into and respect the individuality and differences between different cultures. I would agree that the government has made breakthroughs. In addition to the preservation of aboriginal languages, the government has worked out a system for writing the languages, completed the compilation of teaching materials for the nine-year compulsory education system and passed relevant laws. But what are the fundamental goals the laws and policies aim to achieve? Some say it is about the preservation of languages and cultures, but we can hardly go back to wearing loincloths like our ancestors.

The truth is that many of the tribes have been integrated into modern society and traditional skills such as building a slate house or building a canoe no longer exist. Children of indigenous families that have moved to the cities no longer speak their mother tongues and nor do many of those who still live in the tribal areas. The thing is that we cannot force aboriginal children to shoulder the responsibility of keeping their cultures alive. The question is, should all aboriginal children receive education about the indigenous peoples from preschool to college, or are a couple of hours a week enough? I think the way to go is a "limited two-track" system, where students are free to change track between a complete aboriginal education and regular education.

Teachers are another problem. When the College of Indigenous Studies was set up, we were hoping that it could be equipped with aboriginal faculty members but in reality most of them are not. The standard for recruiting faculty members was the same as any other university. But where can you find someone with a doctorate to teach an indigenous language? We complained, but to no avail. In fact, we did not know what to teach the students, because there were no textbooks about aboriginal cultures and we had to compile our own teaching materials. Currently in tribal primary and high schools, people who have completed regular normal education and receive some hours of extra courses can teach indigenous culture. That is way too easy to qualify a teacher.

The problem is that we have been making a lot of effort in education for indigenous people, but there has been little done in the way of education about them. If we are determined to work on the latter, we need to invest a lot more. The government has actually invested a lot in local education, but it is mostly about Taiwanese and Hakka cultures. From my point of view, aboriginal languages and cultures are in much greater danger than these two, but are not receiving the same level of investment. There are millions who speak Taiwanese and Hakka, but each and every one of Taiwan's indigenous languages is in immediate danger of disappearing. Take my people, the Pinuyumayans, there are only 10,000 of us and fewer than 2,000 speak our mother tongue.

Take the preservation of languages. The government has spent considerable time and money on this. Normally, you need to have a romanization system for the languages to be able to compile the teaching materials and then you establish the tribal language certification system. But the government started to issue certificates before the romanization system came out in 2006. The same goes for the teaching materials. The fundamental reason for this waste of money and time is the lack of a policy goal, and consequently that of a blueprint and efficient process for its execution. Facing these problems, I think we had better slow down and rethink carefully our goals and priorities.

Wang Ming-huey: The key problem, I think, is that the education provided for aborigines diverges from the work of cultural transmission. Though the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act and the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples are made to promote indigenous ethnic cultures, neither the goal nor the nature of the education to be given the indigenous peoples is clearly stated therein. We hope to change the past experience of being assimilated into the rulers' cultures--first the Japanese and then the Kuomintang, but we find no way.

Establishing a university for ethnic communities is indicative of what the new law attempts to achieve. But the curriculum taught at the College of Indigenous Studies covers such subjects as anthropology, sociology, ethnology, or political science, and Mandarin is still the language used to teach, which is no different from teaching at regular colleges. Intrinsically, we are still implementing the assimilation policy. The indigenous people have to master Mandarin, in order to learn about their tribes, whereas the knowledge still alive in the tribe is ignored.

Regular education also fails. The indigenous peoples are of different ethnicities, but are not treated as such. Our education intends to assimilate the aborigines into the mainstream culture. By the policy of adding to their scores for aborigine students, some think the differences between cultures can be eliminated. The aboriginal students strive to overcome the culture shock of school, yet at the end of the day they find that they are not really the same as the other pupils. They accordingly experience failure in mastering the elements of their traditional culture, whilst at the same time become stigmatized by the policy of adding to their scores. Can the aborigines manage their educational affairs? If they can, they can manage their future.

Rutamekan Garuljigulj (Photo by Chang Su-ching)

Rutamekan Garuljigulj: So far, education in traditional ethnic culture falls under the jurisdiction of the Council of Indigenous Peoples while general education is the province of the Ministry of Education. Undeniably, it is the majority ethnic population who dominate the areas of politics, economics, education and culture and the minority has to interact with the mainstream population. The result is that the aborigines enjoy a disadvantaged status socially and economically and their cultures are vanishing. To enhance the status of the aborigines, education must be and should be the first matter to be addressed.

The purpose and direction of education should be judged from the outcome. The aborigines have difficulties in adaptation or learning because of cultural differences. The schools teach Han Chinese culture while the ethnic culture rules back home. One important thing is to help aboriginal kids get accustomed to Han culture before formal education starts. The score-raising policy offers aborigines more opportunities for schooling, and those who pass language tests can have their scores raised by another 10 percent. But the quality of education is questionable, particularly that in remote villages. Take me for example. I had to move my kids to the city for schooling in order to enhance their competitive edge.

The question is which direction should the education for aborigines be developed toward: assimilation, acculturation or modernization? So far the CIP wants to try acculturation.

I think the education act promulgated in 1998 for indigenous peoples has established a good norm. But some regulations need to be discussed further. For example, local governments usually close down a school in a remote area or combine two which have low attendance because of budget constraints. But this hampers people in the locality's right to education.

The writing system used by the aboriginal communities is romanized. In December 2005, the CIP and the Ministry of Education promulgated the unified writing system for aboriginal languages. Last year we promulgated learning materials using romanization. At the end of this year we are going to publish materials for ethnic cultures as well as for daily conversation. There are online courses on the aborigines. The CIP has commissioned the Pingtung University of Education to draw up a plan for aboriginal education, based on which the educational affairs of the aborigines will be managed in the future.

TR: How have things been improving for the indigenous peoples in terms of education resources and educational opportunities as well as the percentage of aborigines receiving proper education since the Education Act for Indigenous Peoples was passed in 1998?

Rutamekan Garuljigulj: Taiwan's population was 21.92 million in 1998. Among them, there were 396,000 indigenous people, accounting for a 1.81 percent share. The corresponding figure amounted to 22.77 million in 2005, including 464,900 aborigines that made up 2.04 percent of the total.

Meanwhile, the number of students on the island was 4.89 million in 2005, compared to 4.64 million in 1998. Among them, there were 102,738 aboriginal students in 2005, accounting for 2.10 percent, compared to 77,744 or 1.68 percent in 1998.

In 2005, the number of aborigines studying in elementary schools was 2.68 percent of the total, but the figure for those studying in junior high schools dropped to 2.60 percent. Also, in 2005, aboriginal students dropping out of school accounted for 1.69 percent of the total, compared to an average of 0.36 percent among the population at large.

Still, some progress has been made. For instance, in 1998, official statistics showed that there were no aborigines studying for doctorate programs, but in 2005, there were 30 and they accounted for 0.11 percent of the total. Also, in 2005, there were 395 aborigines studying at graduate schools, compared to 18 in 1998.

Kung Wen-chi: The government statistics indicate a downward trend in the number of indigenous people pursuing higher education. And their dropout rate is comparatively higher. These matters are closely related to the economic and transportation problems commonly faced by aborigines living in remote areas. We must tackle these issues first before discussing how to improve aboriginal education.

TR: When it comes to planning the curriculum, what should be done to keep a balance between regular subjects and the teaching of the aborigines' own traditional cultures?

Wang Ming-huey: We should not impose a mission of conserving and passing down the heritage of aboriginal cultures upon the younger generations. That's a burden too heavy for them to undertake, given the fact that they, like non-aboriginal students, have already been burdened with learning the standard curriculum, including Chinese literature and mathematics. On the other hand, the mainstream society should seek to learn about aboriginal cultures; it's the (mainstream) society that needs to be educated.

Aboriginal education should emphasize the cultivation of a well-rounded personality in that the students not only should know about their own cultures, but also Han culture as well as the modern world. Instead of using a dichotomy: assimilation or segregation, we should adopt the concept of interaction, or say, integration in our promotion of aboriginal education.

Kung Wen-chi: We expect National Dong Hwa University's College of Indigenous Studies to become a cradle for talent cultivation and offer job opportunities to aborigines. However, among its current faculty, the number of aborigines is small.

On another front, cases in the United States and Canada have shown that it is better to establish aboriginal colleges as subsidiary parts of well-known universities, rather than on their own. The University of Hawaii, for example, also offers indigenous studies, and students that study the program are awarded a degree of the University of Hawaii upon their graduation, which facilitates their job search, given the social recognition of the leading universities. The situation in China, however, is different as it has several autonomous regions under the jurisdiction of different ethnic groups. They have a high demand for educated talent and consequently can support the setting up of independent aboriginal colleges.

Currently, the promotion of aboriginal education runs into three major problems. First, despite its establishment in 2000, the campus facilities for the College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University have not been completely finished. Though the construction project is scheduled to be finished by September, the estimated budget of NT$80 million (US$2.4 million) for its first-year operation has not yet been secured, and its teaching staff is insufficient.

Second, the languages currently in danger of extinction are aboriginal ones, and they thus should be given greater attention. But due to ideological concerns, eventually the draft bill governing aboriginal languages development was merged into the National Languages Development Act. And so no specific objectives for aboriginal languages development have been set.

Third, the preferential policy that enables aboriginal students to score 10 percent higher on their entrance exam results for high schools and universities should be reviewed. Personally, I don't think such a policy is feasible. These three problems show that our aboriginal education policies are not well formulated.

Sun Ta-chuan (Photo by Chang Su-ching)

Sun Ta-chuan: For an aboriginal child, it shouldn't be considered shameful to be deeply assimilated into Han culture. Rather, survival is a human right. Younger generations have the right to choose how to live in modern society. Those parents who try everything they can to send their children to the cities for better education should not be blamed. The decline of traditional ethnic cultures is taking place all over the world. It's surely a pity, but the problem can be addressed more tolerantly. Since the formation of the Council of Indigenous Peoples, while not everyone is satisfied with what it has done, at least it has some achievements to its credit.

The educational system for indigenous people should be established on a two-track model. Aboriginal children can choose to go to a few specified schools. There they can develop their physical and cultural strengths that would be neglected and eventually lost at regular schools. This is also a problem for Taiwan's education in general. The current policy of pluralistic education wants to create an easier learning environment. However, learning is no easier, in fact even tougher for students. They still have to learn a lot of material and take a lot of exams. Before the overall educational environment, including the vocational schooling system, really improves in Taiwan, aboriginal education won't see much change for the better.

I think not all aboriginal children have to complete their learning in an educational system designed specifically for indigenous people. We can't force them to put their ethnic identification ahead of their possibilities of personal achievement. On the other hand, indigenous people should be offered a chance to follow their own ethnic education path all the way up to doctoral programs. Then they can teach in the kindergartens or primary schools in the tribes, allowing for more courses on ethnic culture and languages. The number of teachers needed for such courses can be calculated. Although a specific educational system is not supposed to be imposed on all aboriginal students, we must ensure that there are always some schools devoted to passing on aboriginal traditions and relevant knowledge.

TR: As of now, some "tribal colleges" have been set up in aboriginal communities to teach people about indigenous cultures. What's the rationale for creating them and how have they fared so far?

Wang Ming-huey (Photo by Chang Su-ching)

Wang Ming-huey: The establishment of tribal colleges derives from two kinds of thinking. One is, in a sense, the duplication of the community colleges that offer social, supplementary education to those failing to enter regular universities. Accordingly, their teaching content continues to convey the ideas of mainstream society and results in the assimilation of the students.

Another is that they may be used as a platform for promoting aboriginal education. However, their limited resources, including teaching staff and finance, have hindered their development. The government should give more resources and power to these institutions, and I believe after some time, they'll find their way. Indigenous peoples should be given greater autonomy in deciding what they want to learn and what their learning objectives should be.

Sun Ta-chuan: Tribal colleges should be designed in a way different from the community colleges intended for lifelong learning. In the past, there were no schools or textbooks for the tribes, which themselves functioned like a school through their seasonal rituals and moral rules. In line with such local learning or cultural tradition, tribal colleges could follow the global trend of localization to focus on tribal renaissance. This job can be integrated with the community development projects launched in the early 1990s by the Council for Cultural Affairs. Through tribal renaissance, which can be done in a creative way such as through the restoration of traditional rituals, all revitalized elements, including the language, can be located or contextualized in an integral cultural scene.

Rutamekan Garuljigulj: Tribal colleges are established in accordance with the Lifelong Learning Act and Education Act for Indigenous Peoples. They seek to combine ethnic, educational, cultural and community resources to develop tribal wisdom and shape a collective will in tribes. Launched in 2003, the tribal college programs are conducted by county or city governments and organized by selected nonprofit groups. The available courses include those on culture, everyday life, business, ecology, tribal studies, language, art, health and leisure. Now, in 12 counties or cities, there are 13 tribal colleges that offer a total of 512 courses and 8,614 people have already completed their study. These colleges are funded by the central government's CIP and the Ministry of Education and local governments in proportions of 80 and 20 percent, respectively.

TR: Does the CIP or the Ministry of Education have a system that reserves places in colleges for aboriginal students, and guarantee them job opportunities after graduation? What are the challenges when the government pushes for these measures?

Rutamekan Garuljigulj: As far as I know, to enhance employment of aborigines, the government procurement law stipulates that aboriginal contractors should be given priority when competing for construction work in aboriginal communities. In addition, government agencies and public schools in aboriginal communities should hire a certain percentage of aboriginal workers. But such government policies and administrative measures are by no means the best way to deal with the employment issue. We still have to change the situation at its root by educational means. A better educational background means a better chance to be employed. I believe a tribe will change for the better in terms of its infrastructure and cultural level, if there are more well-educated tribespeople. Even though they might not have majored in culture-related subjects, they might make contributions to their hometowns one day by taking care of local cultural affairs. A people can perish if they cannot keep cultural legacies and their language alive. As some people say, the southern Min language is registering for a check at the clinic, the Hakka language is in the emergency room and aboriginal languages are on life support in the intensive care unit. If we don't take action now, they soon will be gone.