Taiwan’s Indigenous Universities and Affirmative Action

This is a translation from the original 台灣若成立原住民族大學，那就讀的原民生還會是「特殊身份學生」嗎？by Hung Tzu-hsuan (洪子萱), a Paiwan student at the National Taipei University of Education, and originally published by Mata Taiwan. Translation by Tim Smith.

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At the end of 2017 the Council of Indigenous Peoples and the National Dong Hwa University launched a feasibility study for a National Indigenous University. Dong Hwa University, long known for its focus on Austronesian indigenous studies, could take the lead in establishing the first nationally funded university with a focus on Taiwanese indigenous peoples. When this information first came to light, it immediately roused the attention and discussion of both Taiwan’s academic world and Taiwanese indigenous communities.

Some view it as a sign of the government’s commitment to transitional justice for the indigenous peoples, but others are worried that the curriculum would be difficult to implement. In any case, it could be said that this is a trailblazing example for indigenous education laws in Taiwan.

In fact, since Taiwan opened the door to experimental higher education last year, there have been increasingly more schools applying for the chance to act as test-labs. Two such examples are Pingtung’s Timur Elementary School, and Taitung’s Tuban Elementary School, focusing on serving the Paiwan people. Timur Elementary School’s experimental status with using Paiwan culture as the basis of its curriculum began in 2016, while Tuban Elementary implemented the nation’s first “Vusam Cultural Experimental Elementary School,” adding the tribe’s traditional life skills and group culture into the school’s curriculum.

Apart from these examples, there are schools in other tribal areas that are following these educational pioneer models with the goals of having kids study their own mother culture, and mesh tribal characteristics into elementary education.

Learning mother cultures in the city

Compared with the abundant cultural classes in rural schools, are schools in urban areas doing well to spur the cultural growth of indigenous children?

There are in fact many municipal elementary and middle schools that incorporate tribal language courses. But the majority of these courses simply gather the indigenous kids together to form a sort of cultural exchange club, or the school would only hire teachers for the tribes with the most kids, but neglect others from even smaller minorities.

Therefore, indigenous children living in the cities have no other way to access traditional tribal knowledge and culture, and it’s difficult to serve each tribe and language specifically.

In recent years, high schools and universities have established indigenous-focused courses or student associations, bringing tribal students together for regular tribal educational activities and providing an environment of belonging. This allows students to discover their roots and to have a group identity within the Han-dominant educational environment.

However, since urban areas are not as intimate as the countryside, opportunities for widespread participation in tribal religious rituals are rather hard to come by. When living for a long time within Han societies, it’s necessary to spend more time acclimating to differences in culture and customs. Because of this, the effectiveness of these educational activities is still very limited.

Indigenous university to play a role in language preservation

According to the 2009 UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Endangered Languages, Taiwan has several indigenous languages that are endangered. Thao, Kavalan, and a couple other languages with small populations of speakers are listed as “critically endangered,” the worst status before extinction. The Sakizaya and Bunun languages are respectively listed as “severely endangered” and “definitely endangered.” Even tribes with robust populations, such as the Paiwan, Amis, Atayal and others, have their languages deemed as “vulnerable.” Saving indigenous languages is of the highest priority.

Currently, the bottleneck in language teaching is the lack of instructors. Many indigenous language teachers are already in their 50’s or older. The educational system is bound to need more younger people in the coming years. An indigenous university can play a role in training instructors and developing curriculum materials for language instruction, by consolidating resources and manpower towards this task.

The Maori university in New Zealand, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa. (By Phillip Capper, CC BY 2.0)

Affirmative action for indigenous students

The current educational policy guarantees many benefits for indigenous students, including additional points for entrance exam scores, guaranteed quota for acceptances, and scholarships or tuition waivers. All these affirmative action policies allow indigenous students to be relieved of many systemic burdens. However, this has also created a learning gap between indigenous students and their peers.

If an indigenous university is established, should the college-entrance threshold and various scholarships and aid be reformed? Following the current policy, nearly every student in an indigenous university would be able to earn tuition waivers and scholarships; as a result, the lack of tuition income would certainly be a massive burden.

Additionally, for indigenous students to learn to proactively compete for academic excellence, perhaps affirmative action should not be implemented to give them an advantage, but rather indigenous students would be treated as normal students as anyone else.

The policy of affirmative action is to compensate for indigenous students being the cultural minority suffering from systemic racism and lack of educational opportunities. But within an indigenous university, if all the indigenous students are competing on the same playing field, then there isn’t a need to supplement them as a special class, but treat all students equally

Conclusion

Since Taiwan’s democratization, leaders across the aisle have slowly implemented policies to improve indigenous cultural preservation and education, such as developing industry within indigenous regions or changes in education. Taiwan has come a long way to be more inclusive and appreciative of indigenous identities. These changes give tribal peoples great gratification and appreciation, and give us ample room to come back to our roots as well as raise up the traditions of our peoples.

The proposal for an indigenous university is an important milestone. We will certainly face many daunting challenges when it comes to course content design, as well as training educators to serve the diverse composition of the 16 recognized indigenous peoples of Taiwan. I am optimistic that the government and education bodies can come up with effective plans to open new opportunities for subsequent generations of our peoples.

(Feature photo of New Zealand’s Rotorua technical school Te Puia, which teaches traditional Maori craftsmanship, by Shiny Things, CC BY 2.0）