The MOE initiated the idea of implementing such a policy in an attempt to boost college students’ English proficiency, and the policy has pressured the school administrators to respond with a concrete quantified number, which they believed to be positive to English teaching and learning. More of such views from school administrators were reflected in the following accounts by Administrator A1, School A’s president for about six years at the time of interviewing (excerpt 16) and Administrator B2, the former head of the Applied English Department at School B (excerpt 17):
Excerpt 16
“Globalization” is a very important yardstick promoted by the Ministry of Education in recent years. I think if you did not raise students’ English proficiency, other measures for globalization would be only in vein.
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Indeed there is external pressure on us, but I don’t think the pressure is negative.
(Administrator A1)
Excerpt 17
Why did the Dean of Academic Affairs feel pressured? This pressure must have come from the Ministry of Education. The MOE has many ways to implement its policies, for example, the school evaluation. If there is something they (the MOE) think is important, they could examine it in the evaluation. Then they could decide on the amount of subsidies for the Teaching and Learning Excellence Program each school could be granted. This is all about money!
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Otherwise, we would not have received this amount of subsidies ranking on the top of the list [of the schools granted by the MOE]. (Administrator B2)
Administrator B2’s candid report revealed one thing that most administrators might not want to bring up; that is, the MOE seems to use the subsidies as a reward (or as a penalty as well) for each school’s effectiveness in implementing the MOE policies. Maybe that is why most school administrators thought the quantification of students’ English achievement is fairly important, because it would be hard for the MOE to distribute the subsidies in a socially acceptable way without some sort of concrete numbers to base on. Administrator A2 had the typical view in this regard:
Excerpt 18
I think the MOE has done some things right. For example, they quantify students’ English proficiency, which is an important basis for rewarding. This is real pressure for every school, and I think everyone in this school, from our president to students, can feel that. (Administrator A2) The pressure from the MOE to the university hierarchy was then passed down to the administrators directly responsible for the English teaching at both schools.
Administrator A3, the former coordinator of the English Language Section at School A, expressed the pressure she perceived:
Excerpt 19
Since we do not have an English Department, the English Language Section has no choice but take full responsibility of all the students’ English learning in our school. Of course most of our school administrators are very polite in addressing this issue, but it is undeniable that there is still some sort of pressure; that is, if year after year, the number [of the passing rate] has not gone up, it would be hard for us to have any excuse for it. (Administrator A3) Administrator B2, the former Head of the English Department at School B, had a similar feeling about the top-down kind of pressure:
Excerpt 20
In fact, the Dean of Academic Affairs is very much concerned about the English education in our school. But whenever he planned a new policy [on English education], he always consulted the English Department and listened to the English teachers’ suggestions.
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I think he (the Dean of Academic Affairs) himself is the executor. No matter it is about the school evaluation, or applying for the subsidies for the Teaching and
Learning Excellence Program, the Dean of Academic Affairs is the most important key person. (Administrator B2) However, in addition to the visible pressure from the MOE, as mentioned above, there is another invisible hand that pushes school administrators to play a key role in the English education; that is, the pressure from the real world. Students in the TVE system usually have much lower English proficiency than their counterparts in the regular education system. When it comes to the job market, vocational university graduates’ competiveness, other things being equal, would be weaker than four-year university graduates in terms of their English proficiency. Their weakness in English has long been worrying the school administrators in the TVE system, as emphasized by Administrator B1:
Excerpt 21
I wish our students’ English could be better--that is a wish from the bottom of my heart. What is pressure? Let me tell you. Our school ranks the sixth among
“enterprises’ favorite schools” in this year’s survey by XXX magazine. However, if compared across subcategories, for example, “English and global views,” we got negative one point under that subcategory, while National Taiwan University got 99 points. There is a 100-point discrepancy between them and us! I think this is a serious problem, so I need to reinforce this part (English).
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I’ve always told my students that when you graduate, I am sure your specialty will be close to your counterparts from National Taiwan, Ching-hua or Jiao-tung University10, even though there was a large gap between you and them when you just entered college. We could use the four years to build up your specialty. I believe our students’ specialty is as good as students in those schools. However, for English, you see, how good those high school graduates’ English is, how can we compare with them? So I wish I could pull our students up and make them comparable in this part (English) with those schools’ students.
(Administrator B1)
And Administrator B1 seems to worry about students’ competitiveness in the job market more than the requirements of the MOE, which he put in the following account:
10 The three universities are generally considered the best universities in Taiwan, especially their college of engineering.
Excerpt 22
I always have to report some numbers for the Teaching and Learning Excellence Program. When we had to trace the numbers, there was only limited growth and I think that is the only pressure. But that pressure is not too much for me.
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For example, we are required to report to the MOE’s on-line database for Vocational Colleges and Universities every year. The MOE’s requirement for our students’ English is only set at the elementary level of the GEPT test. And I said, how could we set our benchmark at such a level, so I don’t care about the numbers, I just gave them the numbers about what we’ve done (first stage of the GEPT intermediate test).