Cram School Culture
Main article: Education in Taiwan See also: Gaokao and SuneungTaiwan, like its neighbors in East Asia, is well-known for its buxiban (補習班), often translated as cram school, and literally meaning "make-up class" or "catch-up class" or to learn more advanced classes. Nearly all students attend some sort of buxiban, whether for mathematics, computer skills, English, other foreign languages, or exam preparation (college, graduate school, TOEFL, GRE, SAT, etc.). This is perpetuated by a meritocratic culture that measures merit through testing, with entrance into college, graduate school, and government service decided entirely on testing. This has also led to a remarkable respect for degrees, including PhDs and overseas Western degrees (US and Great Britain).
English teaching is a big business in Taiwan, with Taiwan, as part of its project to reinvigorate the Taiwan miracle, aiming to become a trilingual country—fluent in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English. Many teachers come from English-speaking countries, such as the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and enjoy salaries of about $30,000–$50,000 per year at a low cost of living, with opportunities to manage or open one's own school and make several times that amount a year.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Taiwan
Famous quotes containing the words cram, school and/or culture:
“He shall love my soul as though
Body were not at all,
He shall love your body
Untroubled by the soul,
Love cram loves two divisions
Yet keep his substance whole.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.”
—Advertisement. Poster in a school near Irving Place, New York City (1983)
“Culture is the suggestion, from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses this imbalance, puts him among equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)