Written by Tuyuq Rabay (Yueh-Chou Ho)
Image credit: Taken by the author.
In the autumn of 2023, I visited an Atayal Elementary school to attend their big school day, pslkotas (literally, ancestral spirit ceremony; tsulingchi; 祖靈祭). Based on one of the key instructional activities developed by this school, pslkotas was devised to teach schoolchildren about their ancestral heritage, history, and language, which were previously downplayed, silenced, and suppressed in the Han-dominated education system. Pedagogically speaking, it was distinct because, rather than staying in a chair-and-desk classroom and text-based environment, the school led students out of the school premises to their hilly learning site—a camphor forest. I followed the row of schoolchildren up the footpath, dressed in sports clothes and wearing wellies. Standing from a viewpoint, the cultural teacher pointed to the river around the hill that disappeared beyond their line of sight and told the kids how their ancestors migrated on foot along trails. When they arrived at the saddle of the hill, they cautiously put on their traditional costumes and sat on the fallen logs in a circle. The sunshine filtering through the canopy of the stemmed camphor trees made the schoolchildren’s dresses more colourful. Everyone waited until the moment came to practise a prominent ritual, sbalay. The head teacher led this ritual by inviting guests, elders, and teachers to stand in front of the stage, using their fingers to tap into the rice wine and spraying it on the ground—an expression of heartfelt gratitude for their utux bnikis (ancestor spirit) that had taken care of them and given them a harvest this year. The head teacher paused, as some school guests might come from a non-Atayal background. He kindly added: ‘Please say thanks to whoever is your ancestor.’ This spraying action brought us together on the land we had just set foot on, out of respect and to be invited into the tayal’ cultural world.
I was struck by how this sacred moment in expressing gratitude to the spiritual entity was brought to the Atayal school, which wittingly brought this cultural event into the educational setting. This pedagogical scenario was not exclusive to tayal’ schoolchildren but was intended to include diverse backgrounds of invited attendees to contribute together in pslkotas, which allows us to reflectively learn with indigenous pedagogy in Taiwan at large. Given the rapid development of indigenous experimental education in Taiwan and based on my experience working with an Atayal school, I would like to reflect on how it could serve as a pedagogical pathway in Taiwan through a school’s activities. Also, while indigenous experimental education has been introduced for years, I highlight emerging tensions and challenges in practice.
Why does indigenous education matter in Taiwan?
Indigenous education offers a critical lens questioning the injustice of indigeneity, ongoingly produced by settler colonialism in Taiwan. Many scholars have argued that settler colonialism is like a serial drama with a sequence of various colonisers (Dutch/Spanish, Qing Empire, Japanese, ROC Taiwan), which have caused dramatic, irreversible impacts on the indigenous communities, suffering from diminishing population, cultural assimilation, and language loss (Shih & Tsai 2021). This colonial practice creates various categories to define “indigeneity” through a colonial gaze to meet each of their civilising agendas. When it comes to the post-war ROC Taiwan era, the indigenous community is kept being othered and inferior in the Han-dominated education system to be sinicised into a Mandarin-centric monological society. In this sense, national primary school (kuominhsiaohsüeh; 國民小學) and education are used interchangeably, referring to a crucial site for cultivating the modern citizen in the service of state interests rather than valuing indigenous community perspectives. Within these schooling experiences, indigenous subjects are expected to receive education (subject knowledge) from the non-indigenous education system rather than have the opportunity to pass down their own cultural heritage intergenerationally.
What is the Indigenous Experimental Education
In relation to the reflection on the settler-colonial practice, former president Tsai Ing-wen made an apology towards the indigenous community in 2016, which embarked on a new era with more pro-indigenous policies. Situating this within the wider national context, the Indigenous Experimental Education (abbreviated as IEE) offers a space for Taiwan to learn and teach indigeneity differently in the current education system and to address indigenous transitional justice (Hsin et al. 2021). Despite many efforts having been made since the early 1990s for developing the indigenous culture teaching materials (yüanchuminhsiangtuwênhuachiaotsai; 原住民鄉土文化教材) and the promulgation of the Indigenous Education Act (Chin 1997), the space of learning indigenous heritage at school is still restricted by the MOE-mandated National Curriculum. This restriction has been slightly lifted since the promulgation of Enforcement of School-based Experimental Education in 2014 and the later amended Indigenous Education Act in 2019, which allows indigenous school to develop the school’s indigenous curriculum (Tansilian 2021: 22). By definition, in comparison with general education focusing on general subjects, such as Mandarin, English, Mathematic, Nature Science, the IEE programme aims to cultivate the under-high-school-level student for teaching Ethnic Education (mintsuchiayu; 民族教育) at school—distinct indigenous knowledge based on the community, including local histories, languages and cultural practices (Ministry of Education 2020). Also, the loose control over the learning period from the MOE has given the indigenous experimental school more freedom to arrange school time and sites for indigenous culture lessons, which were disproportionately ignored or worse, distorted in previous lessons. Furthermore, the culture-responsive pedagogy is frequently applied for teaching the general subjects’ knowledge with an intention to reflect on the indigenous culture context (ibid.: 25). Since the opening of the first IEE school, P’uma elementary school, in 2016, it has been implemented for a decade (Ministry of Education 2020: 3). Nowadays, it has been forty-four under-high-school-level schools included in the IEE programme across various indigenous communities (Central Agency News 2025).
Learning within indigeneity during school’s pslkotas
An indigenous scholar, Paelabang Danapan, has argued that general schooling emphasises general subjects, causing them to become detached from their inherited culture and to be sinicised into the mainstream Han-Chinese culture and nation (Sun 2010: 197). In this sense, many IEE schools sought to twist this paradigm. They hoped to cultivate their schoolchildren holistically to become indigenous persons and to learn beyond the campus in a wider indigenous community environment (Chen 2017). Reflecting on my observation while attending pslkotas organised by an Atayal school, I frame this approach could be found with an attempt to develop various pedagogies by positioning school children at the centre of their indigenous epistemology—learning within indigeneity—where the ancestral heritage histories, hands-on learning, and spiritual relation building are explicitly emphasised.
Let us return to the opening story in pslkotas. Firstly, it highlighted ancestral heritage and history for schoolchildren to learn about. It was designed as a whole-school instructional event that followed the millet agricultural calendar, when the tayal’ household used to gather after the harvest. During this particular kin gathering, the family members enjoyed being together, sharing food, and recounting family histories. That tradition was taught and repeated by schoolchildren, their peers, and teachers in the camphor forest.
Also, during the walk, experiential learning was amplified when the cultural teacher stopped and guided students’ understanding that they were walking on ancestral lived history. The climax of the event was a moment when the cultural teacher practised lmhu, an intangible cultural heritage, by chanting and narrating, connecting the attendees to their epic migratory history. Secondly, the hands-on learning is practised. That means embodied engagement was key to helping schoolchildren learn, rather than relying on text-based learning in an ordinary classroom. So, during pslkotas, students took their short school journey, walking out of the school building and into the hilly forest learning space. Meanwhile, to prepare for the ritual offerings, students collaborated in the revitalised kitchen corner to cook and prepare food from the harvested crops. Both walking and food-making focused on the learning-by-doing aspect, evoking their ancestral lived past and connecting to the present moment. Thirdly, the building of spiritual relationships is stressed during pslkotas. That could be seen in how the sbalay was practised, as it sought to build a reciprocal relationship by speaking aloud, negotiating, and meeting mutual goals. This relationship was both spiritual and human when students were asked to respect utux bnikis and be intimate with them, as if treating their own late family members. This spiritual relationship-building was practised by offering food made by students and by responding to utux bnikis with Atayal songs. In short, during pslkotas, the schoolchildren are regarded not just as an instructional activity at school but as a dialogue to help them position themselves within their cultural heritage under the current education system.
Image credit: Taken by the author.
Tensions, challenges, and implications
However, having been implemented in indigenous education for a decade, the IEE programme continues to face tensions and challenges. Some argue that despite the tremendous efforts made to develop the culture lesson, the indigenous curriculum still faces shortages of teaching materials, teaching capacity, and trained professionals (Chen 2017). Scholars point out common issues, including the current impact on the national curriculum, inefficient time allocation for indigenous language teaching, and the lack of an indigenous knowledge system (tjbusungu’e vayayana 2021: 42-43). Although the IEE does not pursue general education as the primary goal, the academic pressures in general subjects for pursuing “competitiveness,” the worry of being “left-behind,” and the “concern about balancing between General Education and Ethnic education” still exist (Omalizi Kumula 2022; TITV 2026). This leads to the next question for considering an indigenous schooling route for the next phase of education or building an education system for the indigenous community (Shen 2022; TITV 2025 ).
Furthermore, thinking provocatively in wider societal aspects in Taiwan, it is often found that there is much discrimination, micro-aggression, and racism against indigenous students (The Reporter 2019). These events show the lack of critical reflection on ongoing settler-colonial practice in the education system. I propose that we reflect on IEE’s spirit of inviting more non-indigenous people to learn and engage in this processual dialogue, drawing on indigenous pedagogy. By doing this, the IEE programme not only strengthens belonging for the indigenous community itself but also creates a footpath for people of various ancestries to walk on—building a more relational and reciprocal Taiwan society, departing from settler colonialism.
Conclusion
To conclude, starting with a school event at an Atayal school, this article has briefly explored indigenous experimental education as an alternative for rethinking pedagogy in Taiwan. I have situated indigenous education in a settler-colonial context, where the colonial gaze produces indigeneity as an othering process. In this sense, the implementation of Indigenous experimental education offers an opportunity within the current education system to learn indigenous knowledge in a different way. I argue that such an approach could be a pedagogy of learning within indigeneity. I also shared my observation based on pslkotas when schoolchildren are centred on their heritage through various pedagogies. Of course, while Indigenous Experimental Education has been in place for years, I have noted some key issues arising from its implementation, and I hope these difficulties can be addressed to build a more pluralistic educational space for a better Taiwanese society.
Tuyuq Rabay (a.k.a Yueh-Chou Ho) is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS University of London, UK and a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Before working on his doctoral project, he was a curriculum assistant at the Indigenous Curriculum Development Centre at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan.
This article was published as part of the special issue on “Plural Education within Taiwan and Beyond“.