Kobe University Repository : Thesis

Kobe University Repository : Thesis Deregulation and Decentralization of Higher Education in Taiwan since 学位論文題目 1994: Political Intervention on Policy Implementation(1994年以降の台 Title 湾における高等教育の規制緩和と分権化－政策実施への政治介入－) 氏名 Chang, Jia-chun Author 専攻分野博士（学術） Degree 学位授与の日付 2014-01-08 Date of Degree 公開日 2015-01-01 Date of Publication 資源タイプ Thesis or Dissertation / 学位論文 Resource Type 報告番号乙第3237号 Report Number 権利 Rights JaLCDOI URL http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/handle_kernel/D2003237 ※当コンテンツは神戸大学の学術成果です。無断複製・不正使用等を禁じます。著作権法で認められている範囲内で、適切にご利用ください。 PDF issue: 2021-10-05 Deregulation and Decentralization of Higher Education in Taiwan since 1994: Political Intervention on Policy Implementation Chang Jia-chung Abstract From the 1950s to 1980s, under the strong leadership of Kuomintang (KMT), Taiwan maintained a one-party system with the institution of the Martial Law. In consideration of the unstable and harsh domestic and international environment, Taiwan implemented authoritative social and economic policies. The centralized policy was implemented in all sectors including the education sector, and education was based upon the ‘Three Principles of the People’ and anti-communist principles. Specifically, in the higher education sub-sector, university autonomy or academic freedom was not accepted, and universities assumed the role of a governmental agency. For instance, teachers’ appointment, students’ recruitment, entrance examinations, education curricula, and university management followed strict government regulations. When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was formed in 1986, Taiwan changed from a one-party dictatorship to a polarized society. In July 1987, the ending of the Martial Law transformed Taiwan into a relatively liberal society. In the higher education sub-sector, the expectation for university autonomy increased among university officials. The University Law was then amended in 1994, which led to the subsequent progression of university deregulation. Examining this democratization from the perspective of quantitative expansion, only one university and three colleges existed as higher education institutes in Taiwan in 1950; this eventually led to the expansion of 28 universities and colleges in 1986. However, the number rapidly increased to 147 universities and colleges in 2008, and over 980,000 students studied in higher education institutions. Higher education became increasingly widespread throughout Taiwan. Based on this background, this study aims to analyze deregulation and decentralization in Taiwanese higher education since 1994, with a focus on political intervention on educational policies. This research examines the following four i questions. First of all, what are the foundations of Taiwanese society in political intervention on Taiwanese higher education development? Second, what are the practices of higher education policy of deregulation and decentralization under the high and low political intervention? Third, what are the political power interactions and competitions in the policies of political intervention in Taiwanese higher education? Forth, what are the confronting positions between political authority, scholar-ruler and educators, and results of conflicts on political intervention in Taiwanese higher education? The objectives of this study that relate to the four research questions are: first of all, to examine the foundations of political intervention on higher education development in Taiwanese society; second, to explore the practices of higher education since 1994 under the high and low political intervention; third, to establish the political power interaction and competition in the policies of political intervention in Taiwanese higher education; and fourth, to explore the confronting positions between political authority, scholar-rulers and educators, and results of conflicts on the issues of political intervention in Taiwanese higher education. Due to the conceptual nature of this study, the research has adopted the view of identity politics and the sociological conflict theory as a theoretical framework, the component of research approach consisting of case study and content analysis. The case study is used to explore causation in order to understand the underlying principles. The content analysis is used to examine the different kinds of documents and materials, including national papers, official education documents, newspapers, and laws that comment on the distinctive mark of higher education. Furthermore, the study employs telephone and face-to-face interviews with four groups of participants: 1) officials in the Ministry of Education (MOE) who are in charge of educational affairs; 2) public and private university/college teaching staff; 3) public and private university/college students; and 4) KMT and DPP legislators. A total of 179 people ii were interviewed, of which 24 are government officials including 7 legislators, 106 are from public universities, and 49 are from private universities. The teaching personnel who were interviewed had at least five years of teaching experience in the university. The officials in the MOE that were interviewed also had at least five years of experience in the education administrative job. The students who were interviewed were randomly selected but had to have studied at least one year in university or college. Briefly, this study finds that: 1) higher education reform since 1994 is tightly connected with political development as well as economic and social movements; 2) the Taiwanese government implemented higher education maximal expansion policy with a type of educational populism where the principle in educational philosophy is ‘to each according to his needs’; 3) many new higher education institutes were the result of deals made by local powerful political factions to support politicians in the elections; 4) the policies of deregulation and decentralization in higher education are actually a means to solve the problems of finance in higher education institutes; 5) the political power’s liberation in higher education is a pseudomorph of re-centralization, that is, most of the higher education affairs are still under the control of central authority, implying that the goal of education in Taiwan is not purely educational but also political. More importantly, the Taiwanese government implemented an unreal deregulation to develop a new type of regulation with educational populism on the basis of ethnic conflicts, national identity and political benefits. The ethnic conflicts, national identity and political benefits were the reason for the Taiwanese higher education development being distant from rationalism. The Taiwanese gave up its rationality from epistemology and emphasized on indigenous consciousness, and the extreme policy of localization and Man-nan ethnic identity in higher education was confronted with problems not only by the global movement of internationalization, iii but also by its political character. With regard to the findings of the case study, in ‘The case of Huang Kuan-tsae of President of National Taiwan Normal University’ for instance, it showed the fundamental matter was the people’s concern over Huang’s legitimacy regarding the employment of educational personnel; and the issue of the MOE overstepping its authority. ‘The case of Tu Cheng-sheng of Educational Minister’ revealed that Tu was a highly political person. He made himself a controversial figure by pushing through a series of highly contentious education policies and stressing on political ideology. ‘The case of education reconstruction alliance movement’ showed clearly that the leader of official reform’s team attempted to use political power to settle the issues of education, and such a way of thinking harmed the spirit of education. This study also finds that higher education in Taiwan has a distortive value in people’s view. The policies are unceasingly intervened by politics. Politicians, scholar-rulers and academic cliques constantly use their power to control the development of higher education with no end in sight. For instance, in the case of ‘professors govern the university’ policy, university autonomy is alienated to political struggles. Moreover, autonomy is always used as an excuse to criticize the people who have different opinions in education or political affairs. In conclusion, it is clear that the majority of Taiwanese firmly believe in higher education determinism, considering that higher education is a significant means to achieve new social status. The monetary reward system is another incentive to push the Taiwanese toward higher education. Unfortunately, Taiwan’s national identity crisis and extreme localization are two major issues that have seriously impeded the development of higher education. Since 1994, the core concept of higher education reform has been deregulation. However, the Taiwanese central authority alienated the value of deregulation into the new form of regulation. Under the control of politicians and scholar-rulers, the higher education reform results is not only excessive iv quantitative expansion but also decline in quality. Nevertheless, the Taiwanese higher education is full of mutative policies and it has indisputably suffered significantly under political intervention. There is a growing belief that higher education needs to be re-reformed in order to respond to the intervention from political authoritarianism under the cloak of democracy and from scholar-rulers in the name of western academic experience. v

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