How does Strawberry Generation in Taiwan Get Rid of the Label?
The Seventh graders in Taiwan have been regarded as The Strawberry Generation due to their poor working performance. The Strawberry Generation means people in this generation are just like strawberries. They look good, but they are too fragile to deal with problems and difficulties. In Taiwan, we called people born in 1981 to 1990 “seventh grader", which will be defined as Generation X and Y in American. With the huge changes of economy, politics, society, family structures, and computers, youths born in this period share very different growing-up experiences with other generations. As Taiwan society gets richer and opener and the family has fewer children in that period, seventh graders have more opportunities to accept higher education, have better consuming experiences, getting more information via computers. They are thought and expected to make a better influence at work. However, as economical development and industrial structures of Taiwan go into new stages and globalization and knowledge-based economy affect Taiwan, job markets demands the new generation with different employability. The enterprises pay much more attention on a graduate’s working attitude in addition to good educational background, but seventh graders believe better educational background and certificate will help to get and keep a good job. The different cognitions between employers of old generations and seventh graders not only reflect their work values that are caused from the different growing-up experiences, but also the gap between school education and job requirements. However, in order to remove the label “Strawberry Generation”, the seventh graders should improve the employ-abilities required for the knowledge-based economy stage; respect different work values, and combine each generation’s advantages. In this way, seven graders can work with different generations efficient and have better working performance. Besides, via government’s help and policy, schools should cooperate with enterprises to adjust the courses to help students cultivate employ-abilities and ready for job after finishing tertiary education.
Actually, giving the label “Strawberry Generation” to the seventh graders is not fair because job markets of different times needs employees with different employability. In the book “I am a seventh grader, but I am not like a strawberry”, Dr. Liu points out that G.N.P. and industrial structures in different times pay important roles in required employability of employees of different generations. Firstly, the fourth graders whose years of graduations are from 1970~1980 are expected work with industriousness and stamina because the industry’s focus in that time is labor intensive industry. G.N.P in that time is from 2000 to 5000 U.S. dollars. Secondly, Secondly, the fifth graders graduating in 1980~1990 would be expected to contain their own professional skill because they have to help the industry of that time to raise the quantity of output and reduce cost. Thirdly, sixth and seventh graders are expected to bring out G.N.P from 15000 to 30000 U.S. dollars. The focus of current industry is knowledge-based economy and innovation. So, the required employability today is more than hard-working and possessing professional skills. The above information shows that industries move to different stages with time and have different expectations for graduates’ ability. If a young person wishes to survive and well-develop in the current stage, he must need many important abilities in addition to hardworking and the professional skill. Some of those extra abilities might not be taken seriously at previous stages. Some of them might be expected to develop after working for a long time. Some of them might not fit the traits of “a good youth” that are thought by people of older generations. Some of them cannot be well cultivated because the school or family education have been not aware of the trends of different required ability or not ready for a mature way to help youth. In the “Challenge 2008: The plan of nation’s developing emphasis-- The Plan of cultivating Generation E” published by M.O.E, the focus of the educational plan is to help the new generation with computer skill and English ability which belong to professional skills. Anything related to educating new employ-abilities to youth is not mentioned at all. The Plan of cultivating Generation E shows that M.O.E is not aware of the importance of extra new employ-abilities, and Taiwan is going to pay for it!
However, whether to have more and new employability will play a decisive role in whether to contain competitiveness to survive in current job markets. According to National Youth Commission, employability means the ability which will be gained by learning and which is for a person to get a job, keep a job, and do the job well. Employability contains two parts. The first one is “core employability” which means beneficial working attitude and personally traits. The second one is “the skill of employability” which means the professional knowledge and skills that the job. (National Youth Commission) In other words, the high education background or professional skills might help youth get a job at first, but these won’t guarantee a person to keep and do the job well in the end without core employability. National Youth Commission also makes the recent survey of university students’ employability. The survey shows that there are eight core employ-abilities that most employers take seriously in the current knowledge- based economy stage. The first one is good working attitude. The second one is stability and the ability of resisting pressure. The third one is oral skill and communicative competence. The fourth one is professional skills and knowledge. The fifth one is the will of learning and plasticity. The sixth one is ability of team work. The seventh one is basic applied computer sills. The last one is the ability of problem-discovery and problem-solving. Besides, in this survey, the secretary bureau of UN even point out in 2003 that “in order to promote youth’s employment, every young man and woman should prepare one pair of core employ-abilities to be qualified for the need of knowledge-and-skill based society.” (N.Y.C.) Therefore, as core employability is becoming more and more important and influential in the current economical stage, the government should try to develop policy to help students cultivate employability via new school education and family education.
Furthermore, while the employers of older generations give seventh graders the label “Strawberry Generation”, this phenomenon can be interpreted as the conflict between different work values of different generations. Master of Business Administration, Mr. Ti-Hsiang Hsu, mentions the different generations have very different work-values in his research paper. He also thinks different work values of generations result in different working performance. While employers of older generations cannot agree on the performance of younger generation and ways of thinking, employees of younger generations may get confused about why. In the table below (Hsu, Tseng-Yuen), it show that older generations and new generations have huge gaps in the viewpoint of enterprise, work, management, and personality traits. The gaps of values are going give rise to the conflict and misunderstanding between older generations and new generations. Moreover, the conflict and misunderstanding won’t help with the improvement of enterprise’ development. However, different times make different generations have different growing-up experiences which affect ways of thinking and values. The differences don’t mean which generation is better than the other. Each generation has its own weakness and advantages. As young employees, it would be the smartest way that seven-graders t show understanding and respect to the different values of older generations to release the conflict, and learn to combine advantages of older generations and new generations to work more efficiently with the older.
Being in an era full of changes and compositeness, it’s a big challenge that how seven graders can find a way to make a balance between the values of tradition and new generations and to survive in the new economical stage. In terms of different needs for the current stage which is based on knowledge and stricken by globalization, seventh graders should prepare core employ-abilities to help to release their professional knowledge or skill more efficient at work. In terms of different values of generations, seven graders must respect the different work values and learn to combine the advantages of both, so that seven graders can work much more efficiently with the old generations, make bigger contribution via better working performance, and get the rid of bad label “Strawberry Generation ”. In order to improve youth’s and the country’s competitiveness, it’s very important and urgent that the government of Taiwan should develop a new educating policy to help youth cultivate the necessary employ-abilities and respects for different values via school education and family education.
Works Cited
Hsu, Ti-Hsiang許翔迪(2003)，「不同世代之工作價值觀、工作態度及其關聯性之研究---以高級科技產業之員工為例」，中壢：中原大學企業管理學研究所碩士論文。
Hsu, Tseng-Yuen徐增圓(2001)，「新世代之工作價值觀、期望報酬類型暨兩者關係因素與組織承諾之關係」，台北：政治大學心理系研究所碩士論文
劉孟奇。我七年級生，我不草莓。台北市:高寶，2007
Ministry of Education. Challenge 2008: The plan of nation’s developing emphasis-- The Plan of cultivating Generation E. Jan. 2005
National Youth Commission. The Survey on University Graduate Students’ Employability. September, 2006.
Being in an era full of changes and compositeness, it’s a big challenge that how seven graders can find a way to make a balance between the values of tradition and new generations and to survive in the new economical stage. In terms of different needs for the current stage which is based on knowledge and stricken by globalization, seventh graders should prepare core employ-abilities to help to release their professional knowledge or skill more efficient at work. In terms of different values of generations, seven graders must respect the different work values and learn to combine the advantages of both, so that seven graders can work much more efficiently with the old generations, make bigger contribution via better working performance, and get the rid of bad label “Strawberry Generation ”. In order to improve youth’s and the country’s competitiveness, it’s very important and urgent that the government of Taiwan should develop a new educating policy to help youth cultivate the necessary employ-abilities and respects for different values via school education and family education.
Works Cited
Hsu, Ti-Hsiang許翔迪(2003)，「不同世代之工作價值觀、工作態度及其關聯性之研究---以高級科技產業之員工為例」，中壢：中原大學企業管理學研究所碩士論文。
Hsu, Tseng-Yuen徐增圓(2001)，「新世代之工作價值觀、期望報酬類型暨兩者關係因素與組織承諾之關係」，台北：政治大學心理系研究所碩士論文
劉孟奇。我七年級生，我不草莓。台北市:高寶，2007
Ministry of Education. Challenge 2008: The plan of nation’s developing emphasis-- The Plan of cultivating Generation E. Jan. 2005
National Youth Commission. The Survey on University Graduate Students’ Employability. September, 2006.
