| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 公民教育與活動領導學系在職進修碩士班 === 93 === The Study of Student’s Grievance System and Practice from the Perspectives of Current Law﹘ The Case of the Teachers Colleges
Abstract
The purpose of the Teachers Colleges is to prepare and train future teachers. Those teachers have an enormous influence on the new generation’s education. Although the Teachers Colleges have been granted university status, the campuses atmosphere remain rather conservative, it is due to the fact that the colleges inherited the system that was from the period of Japanese colony. The students of the Teachers colleges, under this condition, entitle very few student rights. However, since the values of freedom, democracy, and rule of law have been deeply embedded in people’s beliefs, the related regulations and current condition of grievance system of the Teachers Colleges should be concerned and examined. After all, the graduates of those institutions will be the educators of the next generations.
This study was based on the perspectives of current law, investigating Taiwanese students’ grievance system and practice by using the model of the Teachers Colleges as an example. The primary purpose of the study was to examine whether or not the Teachers Colleges’ grievance system and its practice reflect the ideology of today’s law and order. The study was expected to reach the following goals:
A. To promote the understanding of ideology of today’s law and order among the campuses of the Teachers Colleges
B. To improve higher education institutions’ respect for student rights
C. To develop professional knowledge of student grievance system among campus staffs
D. To prepare students to become teachers who are equipped with the beliefs of law and order
E. To promote colleges’ recognition of students’ campus experience and student development
This study employed Document Analysis Method and Semi-Structured Interview Method. By using these approaches, it is expected to thoroughly analyze, explain and discuss the grievance practice and its basic guidelines, based on the law’s perspective. Whether or not the grievance system was properly and accurately established? Whether or not the system reflected the principles of today’s law? Any system must rely on a comprehensive structure to operate properly. The Teachers Colleges’ grievance procedure mainly follows “The Principles of Students’ Grievance Procedure for Higher Education Institutions.” For this reason, it is important to review both contents of “The principles of Students’ Grievance Procedure for Higher Education Institutions” and the colleges’ grievance procedures, in hope to understand the degree in which they abide by the current law. In doing so, the strengths and weaknesses of grievance system could be revealed. Semi-Structured Interview Method was applied in this study because it allowed the researcher to review the actual practice, procedure, and details of the grievance system, and how the system was applicable to the students. The study was also to investigate how practical the system was to the students, and how it meets the perspectives of the rule of law.
The results of this study are concluded as following:
1. The Students’ basic rights are limited or even ignored in the Teachers Colleges. When students’ rights are compromised, they have to go through the grievance procedures before exercise their Constitutional rights for petition and/or litigation. In addition, the educational officials, administrators and staffs of the colleges, in general, have very limited professional knowledge and understanding of the basic law. They do not regard students as learners, but rather seeing them as a group of people who need to be controlled or restrained.
2. “The Principles of Students’ Grievance Procedure for Higher Education Institutions” is regarded as an administrative guideline rather than an order or a law. Many parts of the Principles, in fact, are against basic rights, rule of law, and general administration policies. There are a lot of flaws and weaknesses within the Principles, such as the lack of a comprehensive, clear, and fundamental content, and the lack of supports for student rights.
3. The grievance procedure reflects many inappropriate practices which do not meet the spirit of today’s law and order. Besides, the grievance system itself has never received enough respect from or has never been actively promoted by the school officials. For instance, the system has never been appropriately and formally introduced to the students, it is separated from the courses that are related to democracy or law, and it receives no confidence in students in terms of making their voice heard.
4. The Teachers Colleges are to prepare and train the future teachers for the next generation. They are not only responsible for cultivating the virtue of civil rights, but they also need to make the school systems and regulations as model examples of the virtue. Through the educational process, the students should be allowed to practice their civil rights, so that the experience would make a significant influence on their learning and development. In addition, the governments’ educational officials should effectively exercise their supervising responsibility granted by the Constitution and law, actively defending and protecting the rights of students from schools’ illegal or inappropriate actions.
5. The students’ grievance system has been put in place and operating for ten years, and it is regarded as a general student affair in the Teachers Colleges. According to the interviews conducted among the campuses, the school officials did not pay enough attention to the system. In addition, the staffs of student affair, in general, are lack of professional knowledge, so that it makes the process of grievance system carry little objectivity, fairness, justice, transcendence, independence, and justification for the due process.
6. Based on the analyses and statistics of the grievance cases that were formally filed and concluded in the Teachers Colleges, it shows that there were several types of castigations: major offence, minor offence, academic failure, and character deficiency. These castigations were regarded as administrative procedure, affair, and discipline, rather than general regulation “corrections.” According to the grievance record from the years of 1996 to 2003, there were only 28 cases filed among the Teachers Colleges while no case was filed at 3 of these colleges. It shows that there are approximately only 27% of the cases were passed, which exactly reflects the conservative characteristics and culture of the Teachers Colleges.
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