Description

Taiwan has a long history of implementing preferential policies for Indigenous students in education. These policies include lowered admission standards, admission quotas, direct admission without exams, and bonus points. The policies over the years have gone through revisions for various reasons, and before 2000 the changes were mostly made at administrative levels involved little policy debates. The most recent round of policy change, however, was a major departure from the government’s previous policies. It required indigenous students to demonstrate indigenous language proficiency and cultural literacy when receiving bonus points in high school and college entrance exams. The government implemented certificate exams on indigenous languages and cultural literacy. Bonus points rewarded to those who got the certificate would be increased, and to those who did not would be decreased. In other words, indigenous students would no longer enjoy the same preferential treatment because they legally have the same racial identity. This policy change has important implications on Taiwan’s identity politics and minority rights. The new policies unfairly and disproportionately impose the responsibility of language and cultural preservation on indigenous students, and the policies also narrowed the state’s initiatives in revitalizing indigenous languages.

Chang-Ling Huang is Associate Professor of Political Science at National Taiwan University. Her research interests include gender politics and labor politics. She is a contributor to the edited volume Gender, Culture, and Society and has published works in Developing Economy, Issues & Studies, and Anthropology of Work Review, etc. Between 2004 and 2007, she served as the director of the board of the Awakening Foundation, the earliest established feminist organization in Taiwan. She is currently working on a monograph State Feminism and Democratic Institutions.