An Evaluation of the Multi-star Project in Taiwan’s College Entrance System: From the Perspective of Social Justice

• Main Authors: SHU,TSAI-FENG, 許彩鳳
• Other Authors: GUH,MUH-CHING
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/66781129169372015625

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 公共行政暨政策學系碩士在職專班 === 96 === Due to the importance of education in our nation’s development, our government has been trying to reform some of the key educational policies in our college entrance system. Ever since the inception of the College Multiple Entrance Program, the government has expanded the channels through which high school graduates can enter their favorite colleges. Among the various methods, the Multi-star Project initiated in 2007 has aroused the most public concern. The project intends to balance the development in different regions, give more opportunities to the elite students in the underdeveloped areas, and lay the basis for the establishment of more community high schools and vocational schools in the future. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effects of the Multi-star Project. The author intends to find out whether the program meets the standard of social justice which it claims. As the whole program is closely connected to the distribution of educational resources, I use John Rowls’ Theory of Justice to judge whether the program has achieved its goal. The analysis has been done at two levels, namely, the process level and the result level. Furthermore, I have explored how an educational policy can best conform to the value of John Rowls’ theory so that more students can benefit from the education system. In the first part of the research, I have depicted the origin of the Multi-star Project and its main content. Then, I have analyzed the key elements of John Rowls’ Theory of Justice. As to the core of the study, I have adopted qualitative approach to analyze the two major questions: whether both the process and the result of the program meet the requirement for equality, which is vital to the success of the whole program. At the process level, I have raised six issues related to the implementation of the program; at the result level, I have designed some semi-open outlines and specific questions to evaluate whether the three objectives claimed by the Ministry of Education and stated in the College Admission Guidelines have been achieved. For this, in-depth interviews with some stake-holders who are closely related to the program have been conducted. In addition, as this program has aroused the concern of the general public, I have collected the reports and commentaries in local newspapers, on the Internet, and from other media and used some of their contents to help design the questions and evaluation of this research. Through the study of both the process and the result levels, we have a clear understanding of whether John Rowls’ perceptions are suitable to our country’s education system and thus should--or should not--be adopted by our educational authorities. We also have a clear picture as to whether the ideas of the scholar who raised the issue has been included in the program and whether the aspirations of Tsing-hua University--which initiated the program—and the Ministry of Education and some other experts have been realized. Furthermore, in this paper, I also make some suggestions about the Multi-star Project, hoping they will help to find the common ground for the students involved, the high schools in Taiwan’s underdeveloped areas, the parents, the colleges, and the Ministry of Education. I hope that in a few years there will be more scholars and students throwing themselves into the research of the project, especially in the area of the project’s effects. It is this author’s sincere hope that our students won’t become the “guinea pigs” in the experiment.