Taipei, Nov. 29 (CNA) A national survey of high school and university students has found that Taiwan's younger generation lacks a"global perspective" and knowledge of international affairs, although they think both are important.
According to the results of the survey by the King Car Education Foundation, only half of the respondents were aware that oil prices are controlled by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and just 31 percent of respondents were able to identify London as the host of the 2012 Olympics.
"English proficiency is important, but the survey results show that it does not guarantee you a global prospective, " said Morgan Sun, general director of the foundation, which has been involved in improving Taiwan's English-learning environment for many years.
"Global perspective is a vague term, but it can be loosely defined as global literacy and international humanitarianism -- your understanding of the basic facts of the world and your attentiveness to what is happening around the world, " said Huang Kuei-bo, a professor at the department of diplomacy of National Chengchi University.
Huang said that several factors contribute to youngsters' ignorance of international affairs, among which are the lack of holistic education in Taiwan's education system, the local media's neglect of international news and the education gap between urban and rural areas.
Of those young people who do pay attention to international news, most of them stick to the entertainment and sports sections, the survey also found.
Another interesting finding was that 89.5 percent of the respondents regard China as the most unfriendly country and 41 percent of the respondents see the United States as an unfriendly country, up from 26 percent two years ago when a similar survey was conducted.
The increasing hostility toward the U.S. might have something to do with Taiwan's failed application for United Nations membership and Washington's opposition to a U.N. referendum for Taiwan, Huang said, adding that this "probably suggests" that Taiwanese students do pay attention to at least some international affairs.
"But it's unfortunate that, for most Taiwanese students, the world in their eyes means four countries: China, Japan, South Korea and the U.S., " said Tsun Ching-yun, who was in charge of the survey.
The survey was conducted in late October among 1,959 randomly chosen high school and university students around the nation.