Moral conduct grades violate students' rights: MOE

This article was published by the Taiwan Headlines on April 14, 2006. It reports that the Ministry of Education in Taiwan recently announced that elementary and junior high school teachers will no longer be allowed to give students a "moral conduct or behavior" letter grade on their report cards. Such grade-giving is considered to be against the rights of the students.

At present, all elementary, junior high and senior high schools in Taiwan give letter grades to reflect the overall behaviors and moral conducts of their students each semester. The grades appear on end-of-term report cards along with two adjectives that describe the student, suc as "talented" and "hardworking", or "straightforward" and "optimistic". These adjectives are usually chosen by teachers from a supplied list.

High schools in Taiwan generally stipulate that at least a C average (or 60 out of 100) moral conduct grade is required in order for a student to graduate. Many colleges only accept students with scores of 80 or higher.

However, according to officials from the Ministry of Education, a student's behavior should no longer be judged simply on a letter grade at the end of each semester. Such practice violates the rights of the students, because it reduces their conducts to a mere letter-grade evaluation.

Neither do the adjectives describe anything about the performances of the students at school. Instead, more appropriate words, phrases and sentences should be used to clearly specify the achievements of the students.

Elementary, junior high and senior high schools are urged to abolish the current moral conduct grading system after August 2006