Taiwan's Retrocession "de-colonization" Educational Research

After about half century’s colonial rule under Japan, Taiwan finally turned to the homeland in1945when China won the Anti-Japanese War. Unfortunately, Japan had in the past decades pushed forward in Taiwan colonist education aiming at eliminating Taiwan people’s sense of nationalism and implanting slavery culture, which left behind severe harm even after Taiwan’s return. Thus, it became an urgent task to wipe away the remaining of colonist culture and to re-spread China’s traditional culture.To normalize Taiwan’s education, the nationallist government had done quite a lot of investigation via "the Taiwan Investigating Committee" and accordingly drew out the renewal plan for postwar Taiwan education. In the early days of Taiwan’s return, the Ministry of Education in Taiwan, Education Department of the Taiwan Ministration, and the thereafter Taiwan Education Office took it as the central task to eliminate the remaining of colonist education. Taiwan Education Office intensified its normal university education as expand of its teacher’s team and replanted Chinese traditional culture on the island. All these provided great educational opportunities for the grass roots.The educational reform was in line with the history trend of communication for people on the both sides of the straits, and to a certain extent released the problems left behind by the Japanese colonist education, establishing normal educational systems, which laid a favorable foundation for the spread of Chinese culture.Yet many problems do exist during this process of anti-colonist education, which affected a better work of its effectiveness. After the war against Japan, Taiwan was trapped in poor economic conditions, making the administration feel hard to carry on. In addition, the prevailing corruption in Taiwan’s education field made the task even tougher and lower the reputation and reliability of the related organizations. Moreover, Kuomintang’s despotic rule in Taiwan inevitably influenced education.It is soothing we can take for granted that the restore of Taiwan’s education featuring anti-colonist had further influence on Taiwan’s social changes and formation. Educational reform had released Taiwan people from colonization, yet it is less than enough to remove thoroughly the bad effects left by Japanese colonist education, which related closely to the problems existing in present Taiwan. A sight into the education during the early days of Taiwan’s return to China definitely plays a positive part to understand its past, present, and future.