No one is denying Japan or South Korea are developed high-income countries. Their universities can definitely teach how to construct buildings, roads, how to build a nuclear plant, subway system, how to make telephones, and so on.
Their universities (unlike the Czech ones) are well-funded, yet they are not on par with the quality of their research as the Western ones are.
So where is the devil hiding? One of the parts is definitely their enormously foolish emphasis on rote memory. Yes, an engineer must know mathematics and so on. But giving just one criterion for academic success is kind of silly.
They have poor academic freedoms, toxic academic culture. “Corrupt academic culture damages the standing of institutions and the academic community badly,” World New University writes.
“An academic culture that is based on meritocratic values, free enquiry and competition is largely absent in East Asia,” it continues.
“Chinese scholars are therefore more and more prone to becoming trapped in the pursuit of administrative standing, rather than devoting their time to legitimate academic research.”
Quirky relationships between academics distort the process of free inquiry: “Decision-making is not based on academic merit, but on personal relationships and preferential treatment. Plagiarism and the falsification of scientific results are common. Those in powerful positions carve up major research grants. Without many opportunities left for diligent individuals, academics seek instant success and quick bucks, and misconduct is often found in daily practices.”
“Strict government regulations limit the interdisciplinary pursuit, imposed permanent appointments to faculty and that academic unit must teach undergraduates. Finally, the evaluation of faculty is limited to top of the system, neglecting the measurement of research and teaching in the rest of the system. Mediocrity is the result,” LinkId writes.
“In China the 90 are cases of contaminated culture that involves students, teachers and managers. Universities administrative roles override other academics, even in terms of salaries, and this encourages students to focus on the future career compared to academic research,” it adds.
They also don’t emphasize critical thinking that is instrumental to high-quality academia. “But it is my opinion that many and probably most of the teachers at the schools where I’ve lectured care very little about teaching,” one Asian student said.
The thing is, they also buried every possible creativity a human being can have. However, Japan and South Korea have the highest percentage of patents in the world, yet their universities lag drastically.
Leave a Reply