Don’t Let “Stupefying Taiwan” Become a Self-Realizing Tragedy

  Don’t Let “Stupefying Taiwan” Become a Self-Realizing Tragedy

China Times Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

March 12, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

The World Bank's latest publication, "The Changing Wealth of Nations: Building a Sustainable Future," conducted a comparative study across the years on the natural capital, financial capital, production capital, and manpower capital of various countries around the world in order to explore, in an in-depth manner, the reasons for economic growth. The conclusions of the study tell politicians a simple fact, that "man" is the most important asset of a country. If a country wants to become advanced, it must invest heavily in its people, allowing the quality of manpower to gear up other capitals, thus producing more wealth.

Nevertheless, Taiwan’s “education reform” in the last 20 years has caused instead serious harm to Taiwan’s talent advantage. First, it blindly eliminated technical/vocational education, producing a large number of university graduates who do not meet the needs of the industries. Secondly, it established too many universities and institutions of higher learning, but could not strictly demand quality, producing large numbers of university graduates that do not possess productivity nor meet the needs of society. The "gap between studies and utility" has expanded, becoming one of the main reasons for young people's stagnant wages; with an uncertain future, society is filled with grievances and complaints. Especially the establishment of graduate schools produced excessive holders of doctoral degrees; everywhere there are “vagabond doctoral degree holders" who could not find suitable work, causing a huge waste of resources to society.

In this environment of a gap between work and expectations, the Mainland at the end of February introduced "31 preferential measures” for Taiwan’s businesses on the Mainland, offering "national treatment" to Taiwan businesses and individual compatriots on the Mainland. What attracts the most attention must be that Taiwan’s talents in institutions of higher learning may apply for various ad hoc foundation projects on the Mainland, such as the “Thousand-Man Plan” or “Ten Thousand-Man Plan,” as well as the National Fund for Natural Sciences and the National Fund for Social Sciences. Moreover, when teachers from Taiwan go to the Mainland to teach, they may bring with them their academic achievements. The measures will allow Taiwan residents to use with ease “Taiwan compatriot ID cards” to register and apply when they seek job opportunities on the Mainland.

It is increasingly difficult for Taiwan’s youth to find a good job and their salaries are relatively low; quality talents are full of grievances and complaints. These measures will help talent in the education and industrial sectors to work on the Mainland with “seamless integration” and will inevitably cause a “magnetic effect.” If the government cannot cope with it appropriately, in a few years, quality young talents will move to the Mainland. According to the World Bank’s latest study, the loss of manpower is a loss of a nation’s wealth, then wouldn’t Taiwan’s future become dim?

Attachment : none