念碩士有什麼意義？
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
碩士大學化不是台灣獨有的問題，各國利用碩士課程大賺其錢早已是公開的祕密。這種風潮自然形成教育與營利上的緊張，即使在社會科學界也不例外。我在 Drezner 那兒見著了一個討論，兩種對於碩士班的討論都有，一般來說，台灣老師的態度比較接近 Jackson 的態度，將學術作業一種志業，懷著春風化雨的精神對待碩士教育：When I teach and work with MA students I am generally looking for those students who really wanted a Ph.D. but perhaps didn't know it yet. Either that or I am looking for those rare MA students who are actually interested in scholarship as a vocation.... as a professor I largely only have one thing to offer to anyone: I press people to clarify their arguments and to take the implications of their commitments more seriously. Period. In my experience a very small minority of MA students find this helpful, and I primarily work with those students.
至於學術作為一種職業，其實已經是碩士級教育的主流，尤其是理工、商學與實務界結合成為趨勢的情形下，社會科學能否「稱職地」為人民服務，對於資源的取得將有一定的影響。
以 Drezner 任教的學校進行這種討論的風險不知如何？有一位任教於 LSE 的大德，就是在自己的 blog 批評 LSE 教學商業化而被火掉的。後來他的血淚史出版在 A Blogger's Manifesto 這本書（開放免費下載，特別是第三章描述他與 LSE 鬥法的「血淚史」，是反省校園言論自由尺度、職業倫理、權力關係與高等教育商品化的好教材）。至於這位 cyberspace 言論自由的烈士現在何處？他目前正以林瑞谷的中文名在交大任教中。
延伸閱讀：
For those who might be interested to discuss the recurring question "should I read Ph.D.", please refer to Erik's brilliant analysis at the "Forget the footnotes". The comment thread is informative and interesting. Wish Erik writes something pertaining diagnostic observation of escalation of post-graduation education in Taiwan. Local opinions sometimes get too partisan lo.
Here are a Guardian coverage concerning Erik Ringmar's issue at LSE and Dave Cole blog over this.
Posted in:
blogosphere,
education
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Hi there,
Thanks for linking. It would be interesting to hear your views on this: http://209.59.210.148/forgethefootnotes/?p=97
Hi Erik, agreed you post a great article discussing the cost of doing a ph.d. I also read the thread of comments, esp. those try to compare "American" & "British" ones. Very informative and interesting. I wish you may dig out the local context in Taiwan to do a ph.d. In fact, the logic that Taiwanese doctoral students start their career may not identical with British counterparts, and thus disparate ph.d. culture.
Hi James, I don't know enough about Taiwanese PhDs yet. I'm teaching in the Dept of General Education at NCTU and we don't have our own students. (Actually that's a real drawback). My impression is that fewer PhD students are studying abroad as a result of increasing prices of education.
What is your view on opening the educational system in Taiwan up to mainland students?
Hi Erik, you do pick a controversial, popular as well, question for local higher edu circle. If you have time, I encourage you to read some relative online discussion in Chinese. Just put terms such as 國家安全, 大陸學生, 少子化, 招生不足, etc. to google, you get partial answers.
Where is this controversy coming from? It's all about the working mechanism of nationalizing higher education system in Taiwan. Since the founding of the Imperial Taipei University 台北帝大, the former name of 台灣大學 in the Japanese colonial period (ref this), higher education is the bedrock to produce core workforce for industrial development. Under this orientation, virtually all universities in Taiwan were heavily financed and directed by the Education Ministry. Engineering colleges are extremely encouraged to establish in order to spawn engineers. Therefore, there is little room for any university to argue its own interest in the past. The past few years, the Edu Ministry started to reduce financial funding to universities, due to short education budget allocated from the government. Instead, the Edu Ministry reoriented itself as watchdog of teaching quality and university faculty structure. This implicates universities have to incrementally count on themselves to raise money. However, long-term patronizing makes universities in Taiwan learned little skill to find alternative financial recourses. Tuition fee still counts more than half in universities' gross income.
Under this circumstance, expanding foreign students recruitment becomes a key issue of survival.
Here comes the problem. Who wants to study in Taiwan? Yes, there are great amount of western students interested in China fever and happy to immerse themselves in Mandarin speaking environment. But there is an intuition that gross potential demand will come from China students. Why? Just look at Japan. Nine out of ten foreign students come from China!! What are China students doing in Japan? Agreed quite a few China students are talented and deligent. They bring new energey to Japan's higher education. But there is also high ratio of China students taking part-time, or even full-time, job and compete with Japanese graduates in the market. Sometimes, misbehavioral China students are feuling criminal rate. This makes Taiwanese to take a more prudential posture towards this question. Benefits/Cost calculating may be a rational way to consider this question. It's a pitty that most arguments are getting partisan, were they con or pro. We need more survey and deliberation, rather than jump into conclusion.