Academic Success Over Physical Activity in Taiwan

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(2007) note that “Taiwanese parents usually emphasise academics and cognitive abilities as crucial for their children’s development, and might be inclined to overlook motor development and physical fitness.” James et al. (2005) partially attributed high rates of obesity amongst boys in Taiwan (compared to girls), to parents “who were more tolerant of boys' excesses: they see academic achievement as much more important for a boy than their looks or their athletic prowess”.

2.2 Academic Success Over Physical Activity in Taiwan

Taiwanese society’s emphasis on schooling and academic achievement as a path to success has meant that Taiwanese children and adolescents face some of the most gruelling classroom schedules in the world. It can be argued that the pressure to achieve academically, and the time spent sitting at a desk in a classroom, plays a serious role in reducing the opportunities for young people to be physically active, exercise, or even play.

Yu and Bairner (2011) trace the emphasis on academic achievement to the neglect of physical activity to Confucianism’s role in Taiwanese society. According to the authors, “over a number of centuries, the Chinese constructed a unique wen-version of manhood, in other words an anti-physical culture.” The Chinese wen and wu paradigm broadly distinguish masculinity into two parts with wen being associated with civil or cultural attainment and generally being referred to learning and the use of the mind, while wu refers to martial or physical valour and generally refers to the use of the body. Confucian education focused on the concept of cultivating the gentleman or exemplary person also known as junzi. One needed to conform to the wen version of masculinity to achieve this status. Confucius (quoted in Yu and Barnier, 2011) stated that “A Gentleman sets his heart on virtue, a petty man sets his heart on

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land” implying that farming and physical labour are not the responsibilities of cultured gentlemen.

Furthermore, an integral part of the Confucian education system was the keju imperial civil service examinations, the traditional way of recruiting state officials in China. A meritocratic exam, success in the keju was a rare means of raising your family’s economic and class status in imperial China. An education of rote-learning of classical material, while never needing to create, question or theorize particular issues, was required to pass the exam. Yu and Bairner (2001) note that unlike western or Japanese education which upheld the importance of physical fitness, Chinese culture was led by a “Confucian class possessing exclusively intellectual ability forged in and evaluated through the keju system”; a system that doesn’t reward creativity or physical fitness, and instead associates intelligence and respect in society with the ability to memorise and repeat. In the 1940’s, the arrival of the KMT, who wanted to cultivate what it believed to be traditional Chinese Confucian values, reinstated similar exams, liankao, or secondary school and university entrance exams. Liankaos were seen as the modern keju and became another means to social mobility. Along with another important Confucian concept, xiaodao, the unquestionable subordination to the will of one’s parents, Taiwanese children and adolescents became regimented into one of the strictest and most stressful education systems in the world.

The daily life of a Taiwanese student is more demanding in terms of schooling compared to countries in the western world. James et al. (2005) estimated that the majority of Taiwanese secondary students had an average of up to 11.5 hours of schooling per day, not including homework. By contrast Australian students would attend school for closer to 7 hours per day. Hsieh (2010) emphasises the over-schooling of Taiwanese students noting that:

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In Taiwan, students have eight classes per day five or six days per week, carry a lot of books, go to cram school in the evenings and on weekends and have more homework than they can finish. Each semester is 20 weeks long, and students study during summer and winter breaks. When it comes to test results, there are few mid to high results, and many fail.

This is in contrast to most western countries where after-school classes are not as popular. Summer and winter vacations are usually filled with recreational activities, and test results generally follow a normal curve. Hsieh (2010) argues that the Taiwanese education system must change in order to cultivate a desire to learn and foster a sense of achievement and personal growth in students. However, the highly competitive exam-focused environment forces students to become overwhelmed by the weight of the curriculum and discouraging test results. Students are left frustrated and their growth and ability to contribute positively to society once they have graduated are stifled.

Attending buxiban, or cram school, is one of the most notable differences between childhood and adolescent experience in Taiwan, compared to most Western countries. “Cram schools consist of the use of outside-school instruction, provided by profit-oriented individuals or school-like organizations, to raise student performance in academic subjects” (Jeng & Liu, 2012). Chou and Yuan (2011) reported that the number of cram schools in Taiwan have been steadily increasing from 5,891 registered schools in 2001 to more than 18,300 in 2011. The authors found that adolescents mostly attend buxiban “due to a mixture of exam anxiety, peer-group pressure, and high parental academic expectation”. Buxiban are seen by parents as a way to improve their children’s chances of higher results in exams and provide education that they feel is insufficient in regular schooling.

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It’s argued that parents and students also overestimate the benefits of cram schooling and follow others in signing up for classes. Jeng and Liu (2012) found that attending cram schools do have a significant positive effect on analytical ability and mathematical performance.

However, with almost 70% of students attending cram schools, (84% of which are from elementary and junior high schools) (Jeng & Liu, 2012), many of the positive effects become redundant as most people receive the same amount of supplemented education. To succeed in senior high school or university entrance exam, many students end up staying in school for extra classes as late as 9p.m (Chou, 2014). Parents in Taiwan spend significant sums of money to finance their children’s additional education. To attend buxiban or cram schools, many parents pay approximately NT$ 2,640 (US$ 80) per subject per month, with fees that may run up to NT $ 7,920 (US$ 240) per month (Chou, 2014). Chou and Yuan (2011) found the higher the social and economic status of a family, the higher the education expectations. 67.4% of junior-high school students and 78.5% of their parents expect them to complete college or university (Jeng & Liu, 2012).

Credentialism, the idea that obtaining a college degree has high social value, still plays a major role in Taiwanese society. Liu (2012) noted the sentiment that “educational background is the most important standard in evaluating a person’s social level, while occupation and income are not that important”. Despite government reforms in the early 2000’s to diversify subject choices, enhance creativity and reduce exam pressure for students, attendance in buxibans has increased and students have started attending earlier and more specialised programs in reaction to the measures (Chou, 2014). Unfortunately, these reforms seem to have only worsened the problem of students spending what could be free time to play or be physically active, and instead increased sedentary time for students by keeping them indoors, sitting at a desk and studying; long after regular school hours are over.

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Within school hours it has been observed that recreational classes such as music, art and PE, have often been replaced with extra academic study (Yu & Bairner, 2011). Wang et al.

(2012) stated that many Taiwanese schools had chosen to sacrifice students’ physical health by abandoning physical education courses in order to improve overall academic achievement. In the same study it was found that that students with better physical fitness had better academic achievement than other groups. It was also found that that regular PE classes in school and frequent exercise, not only improved physical strength among students, but also brought positive and significant influence toward achievement.

The PE strong-point school (tiyu zhongdian xuexiao) system introduced by the government was put in place to deal with the negative consequences of an overemphasis on education or anti-physical culture (Yu & Bairner, 2011). Although originally designed to help athletes further their education (if they struggled academically), the system has hindered the popularisation of sport as regular schools cannot compete with these schools in competition and therefore mass participation in sports teams suffers. Su et al. (2018) have noted serious problems with schools for elite student athletes as they lack the necessary competition, encounter training and academic conflicts, insufficient funding and a lack of career planning for students towards the end of school.