Homework triage in dual systems: student agency and the unintended consequences of Taiwan’s competency-based reform

In East Asian societies where shadow education is pervasive, junior high school students receive homework from formal and cram schools, each operating under different educational logics. This qualitative case study examines how seventh-grade students in urban Taiwan understand, manage, and justify competing homework demands. Findings reveal that students prioritise cram school homework through “homework triage”, driven by assessment-linked utility rather than learning. This routinises the delegitimisation of competency-based school assignments in daily practice. Students develop “strategic capital”, that is, the capacity to read accountability cues, mobilise external support, and allocate effort across competing systems, which varies by achievement levels and tutoring modes. This uneven distribution can be a plausible micro-level pathway for dual homework systems to reproduce educational inequality. However, this hypothesis requires testing with direct socioeconomic measures. This study argues that competency-based curriculum reform in societies where shadow education is prevalent risks procedural hollowing out without concurrent assessment transformation.