Scheme 1. Educational system
of Taiwan, R.O.C. In the school year 1994, 7,086 schools, 232,735 teachers,
5,274,350 students in Taiwan, R.O.C. Figure with Chinese Letters
Chemical Education in Asia-Pacific
Tai-Shan Fang
Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan Normal University
Division of Education, Chinese Chemical Society (Taipei)
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Since the central government of Republic of China was relocated to Taipei in 1949, it's political, economic and social achievements have contributed to a steady rise in world living standards. During the past forty-five years, the per capita GNP of the Nation has reached U.S. $ 13,000 up from $ 40 and ranking 15th in the volume of foreign trade in the world. The most eye-catching thing is that the President, officials of villages, counties, provinces, cities, and even academic positions are all directly elected by the people. Of course, the remarkable advancement in education at all levels in the free district of Taiwan, Kinmen, and Matsu is the driving force behind them.
Science education has long been recognized as one of the most urgent policies to strengthen national power. The government was eager to acquire modern technology. It was very essential to implement a new educational system in science. In 1957, the Sputnik era initiated the world wide revolution of science curriculum development. The Ministry of Education (MOE) of this country established a committee to study the published course materials, and eventually transplanted to the education system for almost 25 years. Starting from the 1968 academic year, the national compulsory education was extended for from six to nine years in an attempt to raise the quality of fundamental education and promote social advancement. The Science Education Center was established in 1973 at National Taiwan Normal University under the supervision of the Steering Committee on Science Education in the Ministry of Education. The center is responsible for research, execution, and dissemination of science education policies for high schools. In keeping pace with the world-wide decreasing population of science-oriented applications in the field of science at the higher education level, the government has passed a bill in 1982 for those students gifted in science and mathematics to enter high school or college without having to go through the joint entrance examinations. This paper summarizes the current chemical education in Taiwan.
The educational system in Taiwan, the Republic of China consists of elementary, secondary and higher education. Its system follows a basic 6-3-3-4-4 pattern. The education from the kindergarten to the graduate study requires about 20 years. It is shown in Scheme 1.
Scheme 1. Educational system
of Taiwan, R.O.C. In the school year 1994, 7,086 schools, 232,735 teachers,
5,274,350 students in Taiwan, R.O.C.
Figure with Chinese Letters
Preschool education is optional, but in 1996, more than 250,000 children were sent to kindergarten by their parents, hoping to get a head start in the highly competitive system. Compulsory education lasts for nine years. The first six is reserved for the elementary education and the next three for junior high school education.
During the 1995-1996 academic year, there were just over 2 million students in elementary schools, more than 1.18 million students in junior high schools, as well as some experimental elementary and junior high schools. Chemistry is integrated in the Course called "Nature" in this level. The ten-year national compulsory education program drawn by the Ministry of Education, put on trial in 1994, will be implemented in full-scale island-wide beginning 1996. The program is designed to integrate junior high and vocational education together. Under the program, a junior high student intending to get enrolled to a senior vocational school after graduation start to receive a two-year vocational training course from the last year of junior high school. At this stage, chemistry is a part of the course called "Physics and Chemistry" which are taken at grade 8 & 9.
The senior secondary education is offered by two kinds of schools, i.e., senior high and senior vocational schools. The length of education is both three years. The enrollment of senior high is about 0.24 million and that of senior vocational is about 0.76 million students. Still others go directly into five-year "Junior college", which also cover a student's high school years. All the freshmen of senior high school students should take one year "Basic Physics and Chemistry". Chemistry is a 1 to 2 years elective course in Grade 11 and /or Grade 12.
College and university level comes next. Besides the above mentioned five-year junior colleges, there are two-year junior colleges, technical and other colleges, and universities. Most college and universities last for four years, while teaching, law and medical school last from five to seven years. Students who fail to earn the required minimum number of credits within a required period may apply to extend his or her study for a maximum of two more years. Master's degree graduate programs require education for one to four years, while that of Doctorate degree programs last for two to seven years. Institutions of higher education include 23 universities, 35 independent four-year colleges, and 72 junior colleges. In 1996, the Join College Entrance Examination(JCEE) was taken by a total of 124,654 students, of whom 57,000 took "chemistry" examination , the requirement for entering into science, engineering, medical, and agriculture college. Currently, there are 20 chemistry departments affiliated to the University. Most of them offer MS and Ph.D. program in chemistry. There are about 2000 graduates in Chemistry, 600 get M.S. degree and 60 get Ph.D. in Chemistry every academic year.
In order to meet the challenge of the computer age, a broad program of science development was initiated, which, in addition to the basic, applied and social sciences, covers science education at all levels. Chemistry is a part of the science education of many programs.
Curriculum, teaching materials, and teaching equipment are interrelated. To standardize the academic level of schools of the same category, the Ministry of Education (MOE) prescribes the standards of curriculum and equipment for schools at all levels. As to the textbooks and teaching materials for primary and secondary schools, some are compiled, published, and supplied by the MOE, while some others are published and sold by publishers after these books and materials are reviewed screened and approved by the National Institute of Compilation and Translation (NICT) beforehand.
In 1957, the Sputnik era initiated the world wide revolution of science curriculum development. The MOE of this country established a committee to study the published course materials, especially those used by the USA and England. SAPA course was introduced to the primary school, called "Nature". The British Snuffled Project became the "Junior Chemistry" for junior high school, where as the American "Chem. Study" was the textbooks for senior high students. The products of the Sputnik shock ended with many students being chemistry impotent, because the contents of them were emphasized too much tough theoretical approaches. Instead, what they want to learn was the life-related materials. These inputs a long-term innovation of chemistry curriculum.
In 1979, the steering committee on science education was organized. It assists the MOE in reviewing and formulating policies on science education. In particular, it oversees the projects being undertaken at the Science Education Center of National Taiwan Normal University. Sub-committees, one for junior high school, and two for senior high school, prepared the chemistry course textbooks. As to elementary "nature" science , the Taiwan Provincial Institute for elementary school teachers' in-service training was responsible for the mission. All levels of chemistry-related textbooks were prepared in following the same patterns : committee compilation tried out in class teaching repeated revisions. It turned out that there were 12 volumes of "nature" in which chemistry was integrated, four volumes of "physics and chemistry" for the students studying in junior high school and two volumes of "basic physics and chemistry" for the first year of the senior high school students. Rigorous chemistry training begins with the second year of the senior high school for those who are interested in the science or engineering. Four volumes were prepared for the 2nd and/or the 3rd year senior high school students. Students could select depending on their attitude and ability. These so called the 3rd generation of chemistry course after the World War II were has been used for almost 13 years since its debut in 1984. One thing should be emphasized here is that this is the 1st set of Group-Corporate created chemistry textbooks. Pages of textbooks from elementary to senior high about partricles and the atomicand molecular structures are shown in Figures 1-3.
Figure 1. Primary school
(Grade 4) "Nature" V. 8, Chapter 7 (pages adopted from textbooks
about particles).
Figure 2.
(Top) Junior high (Grade 8) "Physics and Chemistry" V. 1 Chapter
8 Sec. 3 atomic theory, and
(Bottom) senior high (Grade 10) "Basic
Physics and Chemistry" Chapter 8-2 atomic theory.
Figure 3. Senior High (Grade 12) "Chemistry"
Chapter 9 atomic theory
New teaching methods and textbooks are also being promoted . In the past three successive years (1993, 1994 ,and 1995), the MOE has published the new curriculum standards including chemistry for all different levels. One important change is that there is less emphasis in the tough theoretical chemistry, and more attention being devoted to the daily life chemistry. Students will be offered more opportunities to choose electives, rather than being rigidly limited to a single copy of chemistry-related textbooks. It is generated that the centralized textbooks are being opened to the general public to compile and publish. The results of the so called "4th Generation" of all level textbooks shall debut in the academics year 1998.
Even though the MOE also gave a prescribed standards for each course of study at the level of higher education, teaching materials are almost adopted freely by teachers. English textbooks in chemistry are used in many Departments, although lectures are in Chinese unless given by occasional visiting foreign professors.
Chemistry is a practical subject, but there is often a large gap between the teaching ideals and the teaching practice. Even though this country is moving toward a developed society, laboratory facility and equipment for the compulsory education are still not enough to pay for demands. The ideal of the classroom being the laboratory is generally prevailing in all levels of compulsory education. For example, the teacher manual of the tested demonstration of practical works in junior high "physics and chemistry" is especially welcomed by the school teachers to solve the insufficiency of the laboratory space.
The strict laboratory training begins in the senior high chemistry course. Most of lab works are followed the traditional manual-type experiments which include physical, inorganic, organic and analytical chemistry. Laboratory exercise should become less prescriptive and more open-ended. There is one out of a total of 35 experiments in senior high school which belong to this type. In the experiment 13: The determination of the anti-acid contents in the stomach pills, which appears in the second volume of laboratory manual for grade 11. Students are asked to do this experiment by using a list of limited apparatus and chemicals, according to their learned experience in the laboratory works including the procedures, recording data and the final report. Locally produced and low-cost equipment is also encouraged by the education authority. For example , a wooden case equipped with experiment basic kits was developed by Professor George Shiau of National Taiwan Normal University. It is not only a good lab teaching aid, but also can be used as a large scale lab examination or lab competition kids attached to the exam tasks in many cases . It is an excellent kit for most of the qualitative lab works as well as some of the quantitative experiments.
For the higher chemical education, the MOE invested about 7 million US dollars to improve the general chemistry laboratory in 20 chemistry departments scattering around the island in the 1983 to 1993 school years period. This money was used to upgrade the high cost of equipment based on general chemistry curricula. Most of the classical experiments in the analytical, organic, inorganic, as well as physical laboratories were degraded to the general chemistry laboratories. For example, the TGA instrument has been used to study the decomposition of the hydrated CuSO4 crystals. Starting from 1994, MOE gave each department about 40,000 US dollars annually to improve the specific laboratories which are oriented to the practical works related to the medicine, energy, environmental protection, as well as materials science. For example, the physical chemistry laboratory is asked to equipped with FTIR to illustrate how the air pollution of CO can be determined both qualitatively and quantitatively in the theory of molecular spectroscopy. The mission-oriented is going to be lasted for 5 to 10 years depending on the budget of the government. The most benefit of the higher education in the laboratories investment is probably the basic research of science.
As mentioned in the previous section, a full quarter of the total population of the Taiwan area is in some form of educational institution or program. Students generally emerge from the mainstream system skilled, well-informed, and self-disciplined as a result of all Confucian precepts point towards ideally becoming leaders in local society. Currently, students are offered two main steps of uniform national examinations. After junior high school, students in the main educational system may enter one of three types of institutions by three types of joint-entrance examinations. Some enter senior high schools, which mainly train students to take the 2nd joint-examination, so called "the Joint College Entrance Examination(JCEE) after 12 grade.
The JCEE is set each summer by a board composed of university presidents. Successful candidates are assigned to a university or college based on their preference and examination results. In 1994, JCEE was taken by a total of 124,786 students, of whom 55,386 scored high enough to enter one of the 50 universities or colleges. Medicine and engineering are still the most competitive fields for admission until recent years, when the fields of business administration and international trade started to attract more interest. Those interested in basic science keep decreasing. Table 1 is listed the lowest scores admitted to the 20 departments of chemistry in the universities during the past 4 years. As one can see, the high prestige universities are national universities, requiring the better examination scores. Also the job opportunity , such as the teachers' colleges or university, attract the better students to enroll in.
There is growing dissatisfaction with the emphasis on examinations in Taiwan's education. A major criticism is that the highly competitive system places tremendous stress on young people. A typical college-bound 17-year-old will devote a year of his or her life to test preparation, often attending both regular senior high school and cram schools. Many students who fail to score high enough to gain admission to the school or field they want often spend another full year preparing in cram schools to retake the exam. It is clear that the exams deprive students of normal lives for one to two years, and that the exam process is very rigorous and stressful. Multichannel reform of the examination system is the first priority of the innovation of the Taiwan's education opportunities. For instances, simplifying and decreasing the difficulty of examination questions . On the other hands, students will be offered more opportunities to choose electives, rather than rigidly limited to a single course of study. In perhaps the most extreme example of this increased flexibility, the MOE announced that it is selecting schools for participation in an experimental program in which students would not have to define their major field of study for their first year or two in university, avoiding the chronic problem of being locked into the department they had to choose while still high school seniors, after their individual interests may be changed.
The global environmental problems have threaten human beings in the past decades: (1)A hot earth, new deserts, melted ice caps, and flooded coastal cities-all due to the billions of tons of CO2 released into the air each year by man's enterprise. (2)A stratosphere no longer shielding man from deadly ultraviolet light because of the depletion of its protective ozone screen by CFC released from the air-spray and coolant. (3)An atmosphere running out of O2 because of pollution's threat to the microscopic, ocean-dwelling photo-plankton, a primary source of oxygen on this planet, and (4)Oceans filling with toxic heavy metal ions, such as toxic mercury and the spill oil, washed to sea by the cesspool rivers from cities around the world. The key factors in these disasters are chemicals. In this light, most critical questions about environmental problems must be educated and taken in action.
Environmental problems in Taiwan, link in many other countries, range from neighborhood level, regional level, river basin and coastal level, continental level to global level. Acidification, eutrophication, waste disposal, climate change, diffusion of substances, dehydration, toxic chemical pollution and damage to natural environment are major concerns in dealing environmental problems in Taiwan as those in other countries.
Stages are set up in terms of organization, regulation, environment education, environmental impact assessment, enforcement and inspection, etc. in the Six-Year National Development Plan, which is almost to be accomplished in 1997. In this plan, major tasks in the scope of environmental education include: (1) setting environmental education policies, (2) promoting environmental education in schools, (3) strengthening public environmental education, and (4) completing 46 basic educational materials, 117 publications , many short TV programs, and broadcasting programs for public education.
Chemistry is close to a nation's health and strength and to the well-being of her people. It touches the lives of every individual through agriculture, industry, nutrition, medicine, the home environment, etc. As mentioned in the previous section , Taiwan's universal educational system and broad government support of R&D activities, the nation now has a virtually unlimited range of technical and human resources, with excellent potential for future development. Local universities and colleges are awarding baccalaureates to nearly 172,000 (ca.2,000 chemists) graduates in 1996, with about 100,000 graduated from technical colleges. There are about 600 M.S. and 60 Ph.D. from graduate schools in chemistry each year. Currently, most of the leading chemists in Taiwan are Western-trained, with most having received their advanced degrees in the United States. Statistics show that there are more than 0.15 million students who have studied abroad in the past forty-five years. The home-returned students were about 0.035 million (23%) entering into Taiwan's job market. Most of them are engaged in teaching and research in colleges and institutions. The current domestic educational system, according to the Statistics Bureau, does not fully meet the needs of all job-market recipients and has become divorced from the needs of society.
The national R&D expenditure has totaled US$ 4,247 million, with US$16.04 million of this coming from chemistry research at the behest of the National Science Council in 1996 fiscal year . This money is carried by 43 institutions with 386 projects basis. Furthermore, as part of the Scientific and Technological Development Project, the Ministry of Economic Affairs in 1995 allocated US$ 206.4 million to government-sponsored research institutes for R&D projects crucial to the ROC's future industrial development. Besides offering guidance on applied research, the Industrial Bureau has recently provided US$121 million to assist various research institutes and private industrial associations in enlarging the scope of their R&D projects. Key research agencies now organized under government jurisdiction include the Industrial Technology Research Institute, Institute for Information Industry, the Development Center for Biotechnology, the United Ship Design and Development Center, China Textile Institute, Metal Industries Development Center, China Productivity Center, and Food Industry Research Institute. Staffed with more than 10,000 trained personnel, these specialized agencies have made a great contribution to the private sector in the development of state-of-the-art technologies. The plan for developing Taiwan into a regional operations center was drafted by the Council for Economic Planning and Development of the Executive Yuan on the basis of expert evaluations. At current stage, Taiwan has many advantages for becoming the six regional operations centers. One of them is the Manufacturing Center. The development and manufacturing of high value-added products is the key to developing Taiwan into a "science and technology island" which will bring more opportunities for chemists.
The school teachers education in Taiwan is divided into two levels. The first level of education is designed to train teachers for elementary schools and kindergartens . In the past, job training was undertaken by junior teachers colleges which admitted junior high graduates to receive five years of education. To raise the quality of teachers, the system was reformed in 1986 when the junior colleges were upgraded to independent teachers colleges which admit senior secondary graduates to receive four years of education. The second level of education, normal universities were designed to train teachers for secondary schools and admitted senior secondary graduates to receive five years of education. Recently, expansion of the education has been very fast, and the quality of teachers has been upgraded steadily. A diversified society and a shortage of teachers for special or unpopular courses cause the above mentioned teachers education institutions insufficient to meet the demand. Consequently, the "Teachers Education Law" was amended in 1994 to increase the channels of teachers training. Specially speaking, all public and private colleges and universities which have set up colleges, departments, graduate schools and/or courses specialized in education sciences may participate in the teachers training job.
The teacher's education program is basically financed by students themselves, with full-public-subsidy and partial aids available to some students. All of the graduates are required to pass the qualification test for teachers, go through one year of internship, and pass the second teacher qualification test before they can obtain the qualified teacher status. With such a status, a graduate may be employed by a primary or secondary school after the teachers qualification review committee of the school passes the review of his status.
Teachers for universities and colleges mainly come from graduate institutes. Teachers at all levels of education shall pass the qualification review. For a teacher at secondary school or below, the review is done by a test. For a teacher at a college or university, his or her qualification shall be confirmed by passing the review of his education attainment and published dissertation.
An in-service training and advanced study program has been established to provide school teachers, after a required length of services, with an opportunity to pursue advanced education so as to enhance their knowledge and enable them to adapt to incessantly renovating education materials and methods. There are four programs for this parts: (1) In-service Training Center for Elementary School Teachers. The center, established in 1956, is a permanent organization to provide in-service training for teachers at kindergartens and elementary schools. Each session lasts for two to ten weeks, and the training program places equal emphasis on improvement in teaching methods as well as on social conduct and activities. Teams are organized to engage in joint planning, discussion, observation, experiment, practice, presentation, demonstration, review, and criticism through a 5-step process of hearing, seeing, speaking, doing, and thinking in an ultimate goal to achieve a correct educational concept and thereby improve the teaching methods. Meanwhile, lessons are given through daily living---especially, eating, dressing, housing, transportation, education, and recreation---in a hope to nurture a better attitude toward an ideal life and form a habit better fitting to the modern society. Through interaction and mutual revelation, the program has an ultimate goal to turn participants into good teachers to bear a sense of mission to resurrect our nation. (2)In-service Training Center for High School Teachers. The center, located on the campuses of the National Taiwan Normal University, has been set up to provide training courses for all high school teachers on a rotational basis. The training programs place emphasis on teaching methods and materials via discussion in order to improve efficiency of teaching. Besides, there're three in-service training centers located at northern, center and southern Taiwan to provide routine short program for each local region's in-service teachers. (3)In-service Training or Advanced Study at Normal Universities ,Teachers College and other Public and Private Universities having the Education College, Department Graduate Program, or Courses. Since a multitude of channels have been set up for the teachers education, the universities or colleges mentioned above give the participants a chance to acquire practical knowledge and to improve technology or to pursue advanced study. (4)Sabbatical leave and Advanced Study System for College Teachers. The measures governing the system was promulgated by the Ministry of Education in May 1941. A university or college teacher may apply for sabbatical leave to do research work for six to twelve months after he has completed seven years of services with outstanding performance record. The application which is required to be submitted through the school authorities with their recommendation is subject to the final approval of the Ministry of Education. The teacher is required to attach a research plan to his application and carry out the plan during the sabbatical leave. During the sabbatical leave, the teacher is entitled to research allowance and travel per diems on top of his regular pay.
It is widely accepted that the ROC educational system is, by many standards, successful. Students generally emerge from the mainstream system skilled, well- informed , and self-disciplined. It is probably the key factor behind ROC's economic and political achievement. The followed achievements in science education can say something for them.
Two parts of science education in K to 12 were general and gifted programs. Taiwan participated in the International Assessment of Educational Progress (IAEP), which was sponsored by Educational Testing Service (ETS) in USA in 1992. Both the results of age 9( grade 4) and age 13(grade 12) ranked in the 2nd among 20 participating countries in the performance of science test. Interestly, boys and girls almost performed equally well in this test . Distribution of percent correct scores by population for age 13 in IAEP, for example, is shown in Table 2. For the achievement in gifted program in Taiwan can be shown in the participation of the International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO). Table 3 lists that the ROC' team won 4 golds, 11 silvers, and 4 bronzes from 19 contestants of high school students in the past five IChOs.
Table 2. Science , Age 13 Average
Percents Correct and Education System
from GIAEP "Learning Science" by ETS , P.79 (1992)
Table 3. 1987 ~ 1996 Statistics
of IChO Metals obtained by Taiwan and Mainland China
The high quality of tertiary chemical education and research programs is revealed in the so called SCI (Science Citation Index). Table 4 shows 1991-1995 Statistics of SCI papers in Basic Sciences research of Taiwan, Mainland China and South Korea. Research papers in Chemistry area are growing almost more than ten times in the past 15 years from 55 SCI papers in 1981 to 652 SCI papers in 1994. The most worthy thing to mention is that President of Academia Since of this country won Chemistry Nobel Prize in 1986 for his contribution in the field of molecular beam. Prof. Yuan T.Lee received his education from primary school to M.S.program in the graduate school all in the ROC's education system.
Table 4.1991-1994 Statistics of
SCI Paper in Basic Sciences of Taiwan, Mainland China and South Korea.
Natural Sciences Newsletter,NSC V8,No.1 P40(1995)
Education is a function of place, time, and personnel. Society expects much from its schools to improve the quality both in general education and vocational training. It is often difficult to evaluate educational research in terms of correct procedures for teaching the present curricula as well as those involved in developing new courses and new techniques for teaching concerning the learning hierarchy of students.
Even though NSC of Taiwan, ROC was established as the original title "National Long-Term Science Development of Science and Technology " as early as in February 1959, the openings of research projects in Mathematics and Science Education to the College teachers and researchers are not until July 1986. NSC had approved 163 projects related to different levels of chemical education in the past decade,1986 - 1995 , including students' learning and development, curriculum, education indicators, instruction and teacher education, computer-assisted learning, characters of and training for gifted students, environmental education, general science education in university, informal and information education, medical education, energy education, and the 3rd international mathematics and science study. These research projects were emphasized individualized as well as mission-oriented projects .
According to last two years statistics of NSC, division of science education has spent almost 3 million US dollars to support research projects in chemical education. There are 16 projects in chemical education out of total 472 cases in science education in 1996, whereas that in 1997 are 21 projects in 336 overall science education cases. In summary, there are 203 projects in chemical education being carried out in the past twelve years. The average research funds for each project is about 20 thousand US dollars. NSC launched in very recently more mission-oriented team cooperated projects, pin-point on (1)two-way navigation control for distance-learning on the web by the teacher-student, and (2)cultivation of basic science and mathematics researches through science education, for the coming fiscal years in the hopes that the Republic of China on Taiwan will become an important sci-tech center in the western Pacific basin.
The Chinese Chemical Society(CCS) was founded in Mainland China in1932. The members are required to be university or college graduates of chemistry, chemical engineering, or other related disciplines; graduates of junior technical colleges with 3 years of working experience related to chemistry may also apply. Presently CCS has 1,682 active individual members and 57 group members, and is one of the most prominent and active societies in Taiwan, Republic of China.
CCS has 15 directors elected by its members. Five executive directors are elected from the directors and the president from the executive directors. The CCS has three supervisors who are responsible for reviewing and auditing the budget records and financial matters. The terms of directors and supervisors are three years. One third of the directors are reelected each year. Activities of CCS are conducted through nine committees: Academic Affairs, Publications, Finance & Funds, Education, Nomenclature, Awards, Chemistry and Environment, International Affairs, and Membership. The main office of CCS is located in Taipei, the capital of the Republic of China. Local chapters are set up in Hsinchu, Taichung, Yunlin, Chiayi and Kaoshiung.
A seven members' Committee of Education of CCS is currently conducted by Prof. Tai-Shan Fang, former chairman of the Department of Chemistry , National Taiwan Normal University. The role of this committee is to bridge the gap between the official educational function (Administrative) and the civil function of CCS( Academic and Technical). The committee helped government in the past few years to achieve the following missions: (1) set and/or revise the curriculum standards for high school chemistry, (2) organize the ROC's team to attend International Chemistry Olympiads (the 24th to 28th) , and (3) help educational institutions to participate the international affairs in chemical education. As the healthy growing of CCS, the more functions are setting in to this committee.
The CCS publishes a bimonthly "Journal of Chinese Chemical Society" (in English) and a quarterly "Hua Hsueh(Chemistry)" (in Chinese). The Chinese Journal publishes in addition to some of the original paper in Chinese, it mostly plays an important role in educational function of the chemistry community in Taiwan.
The analyzed collected data, which were based on 3 stage's tests of acid, base, salts and questionnaires on the social background, learning attitude and records, taken by 1885 students of grade 12, 2282 students of grade 9, and 2395 students of grade 6, respectively, show that the highly competitive stress on examination and the excellency oriented education are the mainstream in the Taiwan education system. Skilled, well informed, and self-disciplined under the guidance of the Confucius thoughts and the transportation of the expert's curricula and teaching materials are the key factors leading Taiwan to the creation of the miracles on economic and political achievements. The prevailing of Utilitarianism and Emphasis on examinations, however, puts a high barrier to achieve the "Do-It-Yourself" (DIY) characteristics of Chemical Science.
The author is greatly indebted to Ministry of Education, National Science Council and Chinese Chemical Society located in Taipei of Taiwan, Republic of China for supporting the author on sabbatical leave from Department of Chemistry, National Taiwan Normal University. The author also wish to thank colleagues, Chairman C.-C. Su, Prof. M.-T. Wey, Prof. C.-H. Wang, Prof. G T.-Z Shiaw and Prof. G. C.-C. Wu for their helpful discussion and reading this manuscript.
l. Tai-Shan Fang and Ming-Chang Jane,"The Excellency and Worries of Chemical Education in Taiwan (ROC)" Chemistry (The Chinese Chemical Society, Taipei), 54, No.2, pp. 97~102 (1996).
2. Tai-Shan Fang, "IChO in Taiwan" and "Chemical Education in Taiwan", Homepage in World Wide Web. http://140.122.142.32/~fang/ICho.htm.
3. IAEP, "Learning Science" E.T.S., USA, Feb.(1992).
4. Tai-Shan Fang, "Study on Indicators of Science Education: Educational Progress in Chemistry (I to IV)" Technical Reports (I) to (IV), 1990 to 1994, National Science Council, ROC. and the references therein.
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