A survey by the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation showed that about 60 percent of people believe that high schools should not be based on gender division.
However, high schools separate students into two groups according to their gender.
Male and female students have to attend different schools.
That is not in line with the spirit of encouraging and helping students to adjust to actual society in which men and women interact with one another every day.
Moreover, such a separation of students based on gender division originated from the Japanese colonization of Taiwan.
Clearly, the arrangement has become outdated.
My friend and his sister were both excellent students in junior-high school.
After they graduated, my friend’s sister spent 3 minutes walking to a top-ranking girls’ high school, but my friend, a male student, had to ride his bicycle to another top-ranking boys’ high school.
Everyday, he had to spend much more time biking to school, no matter how terrible the weather was.
GOVERNMENT POLICY
He and his sister could have attended the same top-ranking school, but due to the policy of separating students based on their gender, they ended up in different ones.
Also, the current arrangement goes against the government’s policy to encourage students to attend a high school in their community so that they can save time and money that would otherwise be spent on commuting.
Defining a high school based on gender limits students’ options.
Not only is it unfair to students, schools are under great recruitment pressure.
Take Jingmei Girls’ High School — one of the top three high schools in Taipei — due to its inconvenient location and the exclusion of male students, the school has had to lower the bar of admission.
This is not good for the school’s development, nor is it favorable for the school to build an environment of diversity.
It is indeed regrettable if the school continues to be confined by its own traditional thinking.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
High-school years are crucial for students to understand their gender identity and sexual orientation.
It is only natural that they are curious about sex.
A high school campus should be the same as society, in which different genders and identities coexist in harmony.
That would make high schools a much healthier, better environment for students.
Top-ranking schools that cultivate excellent students, in particular, must recognize that the gender-based separation of students is not so different from apartheid.
Those high schools create walls that prevent students from knowing more about gender and sex; consequently, students can only get to know those of different gender identities and sexual orientations in cram schools.
Meaningful traditions should be preserved, but outdated ones should be abolished as soon as possible.
Male and female students should study together and respect each other in schools.
Let us get rid of the separation of students based on their gender.
High schools should no longer be branded as either a girls’ school or boys’ school.
In this way, high schools would truly help students prepare for college.
Hsiao Chia-hung is an adjunct lecturer at university.
Translated by Emma Liu
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