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In summary, as Table 5-3 shows, the non-Mainlanders possessed the advantages of social capital in the private sector while the Mainlanders enjoyed similar advantages in the public sector. Hence, generally speaking, the private sector was Hoklo-dominant while the public sector was Mandarin-dominant. A clear ethnolinguistic line was thus drawn.
5.3 Education and Language Use
During martial law period, the economic structure of Taiwan dramatically transformed from primary to secondary and then to tertiary industry. This economic upgrade could not be achieved without abundant supply of quality human resources, particularly since Taiwan was short of natural resources. Thus, to boost the economy and facilitate the process of industrialization, the ROC government invested a lot in education in order to produce sufficient human capital. In addition, for members of the lower class that desired to gain upward social mobility, appropriate education equipped them with necessary skills so that they were able to respond to the fast-changing economy effectively, and good educational background was one of the characteristics of the new middle class.
Education played a key role in Taiwan’s economic development and industrial upgrade. Since 1953, a series of economic development plans had been implemented by the government. Nevertheless, the plans for cultivating quality human capital were not introduced until the mid-1960s. Since then, almost all levels of educational policies, especially those related to vocational education, have been led by economic goals.112
Table 5-4 lists different stages of economic plans as well as the corresponding
112 Tien, Flora F. 1996. How Education Drove Taiwan’s Economic Development. Economic Reform Today, 4: 13.
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educational policies aimed at providing appropriate human capital for potential economic development.
Table 5-4: Taiwan’s Economic Plans and Manpower Plans over Four Decades of Economic Development113
Economic Plan Period Principal goals of the education policies 1965-68 Extend compulsory education from six to nine
years; increase the number of industry-oriented vocational schools and five-year junior
colleges.
Export Expansion
1969-72 Add more vocational schools and five-year junior colleges; set student ratio of 1:1 for vocational schools and high schools, with the goal of raising this ratio to 3:2 by 1977; set goal of attaining a ratio among graduates of
vocational schools, junior colleges, and universities of 3:2:2 in 1972 and 2:2:1 in 1977.
1973-76 Establish Taiwan Institute of Technology; limit the increase in the number of high schools; set student ratio goal of 7:3 for vocational schools and high schools to be achieved within ten years; set the university student ratio of 11:9 for science and technology departments as opposed to humanities and social science departments.
Public Construction and Development of Private Sector
1976-81 Set student ratio goal of 7:3 for vocational schools and high schools; improve faculty quality and curriculum design in vocational schools.
1980-89 Increase the number of graduate schools; limit the expansion of high schools; increase focus on engineering, agriculture, shipbuilding, and
1982-85 Extend compulsory education to 12 years for those following the vocational education track.
113 Ibid.: 15.
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1986-89 Enhance educational quality; adjust high school education for both college preparation and vocational training; improve the quality of education for private vocational schools.
1990-93 Expand higher education; adjust curriculum in high schools and vocational schools to establish specialized high schools; establish
technology-oriented four-year colleges.
Towards Becoming an Asia-Pacific Operation Center
1991-96 Improve educational equality in different regions; develop programs focusing on service industries in vocational schools and colleges.
Due to the large-scale structural transformation in a relatively short period of time, the shortage of high-level manpower became more acute for Taiwan in pursuit of rapid economic growth. Taiwan’s human resource problem was the shortage of highly trained scholars and scientists as well as the undersupply of university graduates in sciences, engineering, education, and medicine, etc. during martial law period.
Because of the drastic economic boom, lots of job opportunities emerged for the highly-educated. As a result, people in Taiwan were becoming more and more eager to pursue higher education. Thus, there had been a rapid expansion of education in Taiwan.
Table 5-5: Number of Schools and Students114
School Year Number of Schools Number of Students
1952-53 1,769 1,187,858
1960-61 2,911 2,365,260
1965-66 3,335 3,101,130
1970-71 3,979 3,969,150
114 Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), Taiwan Statistical Data Book, 2003, p.
275.
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According to Table 5-5, the number of students in school year 1952-53 was 1769, and the number rose by nearly six times to 6432 in school year 1986-87; the number of students in school year 1952-53 was 1187858, and then rose to 5028059 in school year 1986-87. Generally speaking, education in Taiwan had undergone a drastic expansion in terms of number of schools and students.
Table 5-6: Number of Schools by Level of Education115 School schools in higher education rose from 8 in school year 1952-53 to 105 in school year 1986-87, while the number rose from 214 to 1042 in secondary education. The nearly two-fold increase in primary education from 1251 to 2461 was particularly important since this level of education was the most attainable to common people and thus it
115 Ibid.: 276.
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dramatically increased the enrollment of school age children.
Table 5-7: Number of Students by Level of Education116 School while the number of students who received primary education nearly doubled.
As discussed in chapter 4, the functional value of Mandarin was much higher, so Mandarin was chosen as the language for instruction in all levels of school.
Furthermore, all language varieties except Mandarin were treated as illegal languages and were thus suppressed in schools during martial law period. If students spoke local language varieties, they would be punished by the way of fines or public insults.
Based on Table 5-5, 5-6, and 5-7, it is reasonable to assume that those who were able to use Mandarin increased rapidly thanks to the expansion of education.
116 Ibid.: 279.
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Table 5-8: Percentage of Educational Attainment for People above Six in Taiwan in 1987117
Elementary School 37.54%
Junior High 19.12%
Senior High 7.40%
Vocational School 16.17%
Junior College 5.15%
College 4.37%
Graduate School 0.22%
Self-study 1.65%
Illiterate 7.79%
Total 100%
Based on Table 5-8, a more realistic figure of fluent speakers of Mandarin could be revealed. People with middle school education or higher accounted for 52.43%. If we then add 37.54%, the percentage of people who received only elementary education or who were at that time enrolled in an elementary school, then the total went up to 89.97%, roughly 90% of the population aged 7 or above. In other words, it makes sense to estimate that for those over six years old in Taiwan in 1987, only roughly 10% of them were unable to use Mandarin.118
During martial law period, education served as a detrimental mechanism for legitimating ROC rule in Taiwan. Ideologically, education was an efficient channel for creating and transmitting symbolic values, and Mandarin was utilized to connect the collective memory of people in Taiwan with the greater Chinese image.
117 Tsao, Feng-fu. 1999. The Language Planning Situation in Taiwan. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 20(4 & 5): 346.
118 Ibid.
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Economically, Mandarin was intentionally created as a gateway for better communication (higher sign value), better education, and better living quality (higher exchange value); in addition, Mandarin, with higher functional value and the help of education, provided people with the access to control, possess, or operate certain knowledge or technology (higher exchange value).
The relationship among education, economic development, and language shift is exhibited in Figure 5-2.
Figure 5-2: Relationship among Education, Economic Development, and Language Shift
Based on Figure 5-2, education contributed to economic development and vice versa. Furthermore, with more people receiving education, it is reasonable to assume that the language structure might turn in favor of the language of education. And this is what happened to Taiwan. With better economic performances, better education became necessary, and thus the prevalence of Mandarin became inevitable.