The scars of our historic conflict with main-land China still exist, with the result that our society has divergent views about policies on opening up Taiwanese schools to mainland Chinese students. However, from an educational standpoint, our highest ideal is to teach everyone without discrimination.
Many, many Taiwanese have studied in Europe and the US over the years, bringing their fantastic experiences back with them when they return. We hope that mainland students who live in, experience, and come to understand Taiwan will learn to love it, facilitating long-term peace in the Taiwan Strait. In addition, we have to recognize that Chinese research has a tremendous impact on Taiwan. Excluding Chinese researchers from the Taiwanese scholarly community inhibits the internationalization of academia in Taiwan.
The president of a university in southern Taiwan recently told me: "Don't be deceived by the KMT. Don't implement this policy." I responded that I've been encouraging the Ministry of Education to permit mainland students to study in Taiwan since my time as president of National Chengchi University and of the Association of National Universities of Taiwan. I believe in this policy. I wouldn't have joined the cabinet if I were only implementing other people's ideas.
But I also know that I'll have to be empathetic to win over those who have concerns about it. We have therefore laid out our "three limitations" and "six nots." Some people have claimed that we've created so many limitations that we haven't really liberalized anything at all.
On the other hand, some presidents of lower-end universities have expressed the hope that major liberalization will "save our crumbling schools." I have to ask them: "What kind of educators would we be if we were just to trick mainland students into coming to Taiwan without offering them a good education?" How can we make up the 50,000-student shortfall at these universities? More importantly, what would be the consequences of inviting large numbers of mainland students here to study?
If anything were to happen to a mainland student in Taiwan, we'd never hear the end of it. We can't just let thousands of students in every day, the way we can when opening our doors to tourists. If some disgruntled people were to provoke an incident, wouldn't mainland students decide that Taiwan wasn't safe? We need to start cautiously, taking into consideration the feelings of the public as a whole.
It is always a challenge to know exactly how to act to maintain social equilibrium when implementing policy. Nonetheless, I believe education is a force for good. If we put "good" at the heart of our actions to allow mainland students access to Taiwanese schools, I am confident that we can avoid sullying our policymaking with utilitarian or ideological objectives, and that we can attract students entirely on the basis of the quality of our educational product.
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