Doubts over the Asian way: Analysis

Students, he said, should become more creative, entrepreneurial and adventurous in the new economic era.

As the world economy moves from manufacturing-based to knowledge-based industries, the prominent academic who has led Taiwan's council on educational reform, said the old Confucian wisdom that "everyone should be brought up in accordance with their talents" made more sense, but that Western ways needed to be grafted into Asian schooling.

Professor Lee has experience of both systems. After completing his Bachelor of Science degree at National Taiwan University in 1959, he received his PhD degree in 1965 at the University of California at Berkeley.

He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in chemistry. In 1994, he returned to Taiwan to head its Academia Sinica and has been suggested as a candidate to replace President Lee Teng-hui.

Professor Lee believes Asian countries must offload their cultural baggage and shift emphasis from the traditional conformity and uniformity to creativity and flexibility.

He blames the exam-oriented structure which encourages rote-learning, which Hong Kong is struggling to change, for the failure to identify and encourage talent.

"We have to create chances for students so long as they want to learn," he said.

While it would take time to see the results, he said Taiwan had first eliminated the constant fight between students through examination.

It has also cut the number of exams, increased chances for resits and placed more emphasis on other assessment methods - proposals similar to those in Hong Kong's current consultation paper.

And there has been an increase in the number of senior high schools and universities. Some vocational training schools have changed to comprehensive high schools.

"We hope that there are many different kinds of universities . . . to bring up different talents," he said. "Conformity and uniformity have to be eliminated. We should have a flexible curriculum and school system that allow students to learn at different speeds."

The champion of Taiwan's educational rethink five years ago, Professor Lee said their fundamental thinking was to raise everyone's education standard.

"We have a commitment. That is: no matter how smart or slow you are in learning, we have the responsibility to bring up everyone. Some of them will become politicians, some scientists, some taxi drivers. Flexibility is more important than uniformity.

"The reason we have not produced enough scientists in Asian countries is because of uniformity. If Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were now in Asia, they would not make it because Einstein was very slow in thinking. You ask him a question, he will think about an hour to come up with deep solutions."

He said a uniform education system might well promote fast learners, but at the expense of slower learners.

"When I compared the American education system with Asia's, I noticed the Americans have an advantage. Young Americans can fail many times but you can start again. But in Asia, once you fail, you will be eliminated.

"In America, they seem to have an infinite chance for everybody to fall down, stand up again and keep moving."

In his lecture at the Chinese University marking the 50th anniversary of the New Asia College on Friday, he said: "Competition for school opportunities has not just defeated the ideal of education for all, but created a battle-ground for human beings.

"In the process of encouraging students to move upstream, many youngsters had suffered or been destroyed.

"Only if we can deeply think of the two important goals of education for the growth of the person and the growth of talents, our education will not go in the wrong direction."

What was most worrying in education, he continued, "is our own inertia". "In some Chinese communities in Southeast Asia, we often see a trend of 'Chinese chauvinism'.

They grew up from the influence of Confucian culture and always believed their culture was superior to others.

"When people started to study the Asian economic miracle a few years ago they linked it with Confucian thoughts . . . The outbreak of the financial crisis in Asia might have exposed some weaknesses in the financial and government-business relationship in some Asian countries.

"Yet few people have now tried to find out its relationship with Confucius' thoughts," Professor Lee told the university.

He maintains that the lack of emphasis on equality in traditional Chinese culture has impeded the development of creativity.

"It's a handicap for young people to become too obedient . . . They do not challenge what teachers and elders say and take whatever they say to be true.

"In America, people are more equal. In school, nobody calls me Professor Lee, always Yuan-tseh . . . The culture in the region is not conducive to bringing up young people.

"In Asian countries, many leaders do not accept a democratic society. When everybody is moving in that direction, they always say, 'we are different, we have different cultures, history or value judgments'. "

Professor Lee said it was important for people to be educated with the concept that they were masters of their own fate.

"In a democratic system, if you do not have such knowledge, express yourself and build up consensus, you do not function well as a community leader. We have to educate young people to understand different cultures, customs; respect others rather than build up bias. This is the challenge any education reform has to face."

He said Taiwan had made progress in developing creativity in its science and technology over the past decades.

Such creativity allowed people to set up small businesses and hence improve industry flexibility. This flexibility of its small and medium-size enterprises had enabled them to compete well in the global market and help Taiwan survive in the regional economic turmoil.

More than 5000 firms had settled between Taipei and Hsin Chu to provide many different components for the computer industry, he said.

Although Hong Kong did not have the "critical mass for its information technology development", he maintained its advantage lay with its links with southeast China.

It would greatly strengthen its position as an IT centre in that region if it was able to attract the best talent from all over the world.

But regardless of its education system or IT industry, Professor Lee said mainland policy would be vital. Hong Kong's future depended on whether it was able to become a nucleus in the southeast part of China where talent from all over the world converged.