The need for a revolution - Israeli and Taiwanese education systems core challenges

Today, while attending a lecture about IP in Taiwan (”Taiwan under siege”) I came across one of the older Banyan Research magazines that NCKU publishes. Strangely enough, I saw a familiar Israeli face staring at me with a commentary about the education system. Here are some highlights from the “Education revolution needed - Education system needs sweeping change to become top national priority by Aaron Ciechanover“.

[…] In a country torn between ethnic groups, religions and worst of all between sectors with vastly opposing views, which more often than not seems like a shaky confederation than a country facing an existential threat for whom unity is a an existential necessity – consensus regarding the curriculum cannot be reached. There are even differences of opinions regarding the significance of […] being a democratic state.
Every proposal for change made by a fleetingly appointed minister is perceived by the opposing sectors as an attempt to enforce political power and rewrite history. Entire sectors decide for themselves what’s good or bad and they proceed to set up subsidiary educational systems for their children, thus making the entire system’s leadership impossible.
Added to this fatigued and divided system is the deterioration in the status of teachers, who are supposed to be its main axis. The teaching profession has almost become a profession that bears a mark of disgrace. The responsibility for some of the deterioration also falls on the shoulders of parents and students, who have become a threat to teachers, who in turn are afraid to confront them and to enforce their agendas and discipline in classrooms.
[…]
Is there any hope of a cure to this ailment? There must be, because if there isn’t […] fate is doomed. We have no quarries for export or for self sustenance, and our only resource is our ability to create. Our advantage vis-à-vis our neighbors and in the international arena in general is being eroded.
Countries such as China and Singapore, and even Muslim Malaysia, realized that the key to their success lies in an advanced educational system, and they are investing in it heavily. Western countries, whose magnificent educational systems are receding, are spearheading in-depth reforms to revive them.
In [the] current state, it’s no longer about establishing another committee – […] – whose conclusions are designed for partial and sectorial implementation anyway. It’s about revolutionizing the educational system – from nursery school to university – and making it the foremost objective on the State’s national list of priorities.
[…]
The writer is a member of the teaching staff at the Technion’s medical faculty, an Israel Prize laureate in biology (2003) and a Nobel Prize laureate in chemistry (2004)

If you’re nodding your head after reading this, then I think it’s important to point out that this piece was about the Israeli education system, and not the one in Taiwan. So, what was this article by an Israeli about the Israeli education system doing in a Taiwanese NCKU research publication? I guess many of the facts he brings up and points he makes - many of which I don’t agree with - could be said about both the Israeli and the Taiwanese education system. It’d be interesting to see how both countries work to revolutionize their education systems to meet local and global challenges.