The Past 10 Years of Taiwan Higher Education Institutions
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International Journal of Research Studies in Education 2021 Volume 10 Number 3, 49-63 A decade of change: The past 10 years of Taiwan higher education institutions Ching, Gregory S. Graduate Institute of Educational Leadership and Development Research and Development Center for Physical Education, Health, and Information Technology Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan ( [email protected] ) ISSN: 2243-7703 Online ISSN: 2243-7711 Received : 20 May 2020 Revised : 30 November 2020 Accepted : 6 December 2020 OPEN ACCESS Available Online : 9 December 2020 DOI : 10.5861/ijrse.2020.5888 Abstract Taiwan higher education institutions are facing great challenges arising from both global and local sources. Global pressures brought forth by need to have a presence within the global university ranking systems (or league tables), while local pressures that stem from the declining number of incoming students. To remedy these dilemmas, the Taiwan Ministry of Education and higher education institutions are working hand in hand focusing on both policy and financial aspects of the academe. This presentation shall focus on providing an overview of what has happened for the past decade, while also summarizing past and ongoing strategies such as institutional mergers, rebranding/transformation of degree programs, changing academic profession, further expansion of international enrollments, and developing the quality of research through the establishment of institutional review boards (IRB) or research ethics committee (REC), and institutional research (IR) centers. Ultimately Taiwan higher education institutions are seeking to expand its institutional competitiveness while struggling with the myriad challenges of the academe. Keywords: governance; policy; restructure; neoliberal management; competitive advantage; institutional performance; funding © The Author(s) / Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND Ching, G. S. A decade of change: The past 10 years of Taiwan higher education institutions 1. Introduction Similar with most countries in the Asian region, the global university ranking systems or the university league tables have greatly influenced Taiwan higher education institutions (HEIs) (Lo, 2014). With the notion that becoming a world-class university is synonymous to being able to make it into the list of the top tier institutions within the league tables (Hazelkorn, 2015; Salmi, 2009); in effect, HEI funding policy changes in Taiwan are being tailored towards enhancing scores within these league tables’ criteria (Deem, Mok, & Lucas, 2008; Grewal, Dearden, & Llilien, 2008; Lynch, 2014; Mok & Chan, 2008). However, such policy changes have been faced with outcry of inequality (Hou, Ince, & Chiang, 2013; Song & Tai, 2007), more specifically, is with the strong emphasis on academic publication within the journals listed in the Thomson Reuter’s ISI citation databases (Ching, 2013a, 2013b; Chou, Lin, & Chiu, 2013; Huang, 2009). Emphasis on publishing within these journals has been tainted with both facts and fallacy, such as the criteria for research grants and awards, promotion of faculty, to the graduation requirement of some doctoral programs. With these having said, it would seem that Taiwan HEIs are being challenged to perform beyond their local boundaries (e.g. publishing in a non-native language such as English instead of Chinese). More important, is that, since most of the available funding is formulated in such a way that HEIs should outperform each other (e.g. the higher number of publications translate to larger amount of funding), it is therefore imperative that universities comply with the rules, so as to able to get into the number game. Looking within the local situation, Taiwan is plague with a serious problem of declining birth rate. According to the National Statistics office of Taiwan, the annual birthrate has been declining since 1985. Record shows that the figure of 344,101 childbirths in 1985 steadily dropped to more than half with the lowest of 166,473 childbirths in 2010, however, with some upward surges during the Chinese Zodiac year of the Dragon (e.g. 1988, 2000, and 2012, see figure 1 for more details). Also note the lowest during the Chinese Zodiac year of the Tiger (e.g. 1986, 1998, and 2010). Figure 1 . Taiwan declining birthrate. Note. Dragon and tiger denotes Chinese Zodiac for the specific year. Source . Taiwan Statistics ( https://www.stat.gov.tw ) 50 Consortia Academia Publishing (A partner of Network of Professional Researchers and Educators ) A decade of change: The past 10 years of Taiwan higher education institutions To increase the population, provisions for monetary and other incentives are placed to encourage childbirths (Branigan, 2012), still, this persisting downward spiraling birth rate, would translate to lesser and lesser students. Hence, this situation would cost a lot of future financial difficulties for academic institutions (Chen & Chang, 2010). It is expected that by the opening of the school year 2016/17 in September 2016, there will be huge drop of around 20,000 university freshmen enrollees (Chang, 2014). In reality, during the 2017/18 school year a dropped of around 30 to 32 percent was felt (Fulco, 2018). By 2028, there will be less than 160,000 new freshmen students left, causing much concern within the academia (Green, 2020). Table 1 shows the past, current, and projected numbers of incoming freshmen students from the Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) together with the existing number of HEIs. Note the steady drop of around 10,000 students per school year starting 2018, with the estimated lowest number of only 159,000 students in 2028. Worth looking into is the actual impact of the decreasing number of students, analyzing the data shows some alarming issues. Table 2 shows that the enrollment changes are mostly affecting private HEIs. In other words, the decreasing number of incoming students is mostly reflected in private HEIs. In reality, when given a chance, students would flock to the national (public) HEIs; as compared to the higher tuition requirement in private institutions, in addition to the somewhat “high” status attached to studying in a national (public) HEI. Table 1 Past, current, and projected number of incoming university first-year students School year Incoming freshmen Number of HEIs * School year Incoming freshmen 2001 276,000 154 2020 214,000 2006 267,000 163 2021 204,000 2011 276,000 163 2022 192,000 2012 278,000 162 2023 187,000 2013 271,000 161 2024 181,000 2014 272,000 159 2025 178,000 2015 273,000 158 2026 178,000 2016 254,000 158 2027 173,000 2017 239,000 157 2028 159,000 ** 2018 252,000 153 2029 165,000 2019 243,000 152 2030 193,000 Note . *Including all public, private, universities, technical vocational universities, and colleges. ** Projected lowest number of students. Source. https://stats.moe.gov.tw Table 2 Actual freshmen enrollment from SY 2010-2015 School year Public % change Private % change Total % change 2010 66,027 0.25% 180,247 3.87% 246,274 2.79% 2011 66,622 0.90% 187,260 3.89% 253,882 3.09% 2012 67,298 1.01% 188,400 0.61% 255,698 0.72% 2013 67,362 0.10% 181,599 -3.61% * 248,961 -2.63% * 2014 68,344 1.46% 182,024 0.23% 250,368 0.57% 2015 68,917 0.84% 179,759 -1.24% * 248,676 -0.68% * Note . *Negative value denoting the number of students dropped. Source . https://stats.moe.gov.tw Furthermore, besides the decreasing new entrants students, overall student population of the private HEIs are steadily decreasing, while minimal impact are felt for the national institutions. In actuality, it is only these few years that public HEIs are having a decreased in overall student population (a decrease of around .2 to .3 percent). Table 3 shows that during the 2011/12 school year, there were around 753,935 students enrolled in private universities, however this went down to around 643,855; a decrease of 110,080 students, an almost drop of 15%. While the public or national universities from 279,050 to 288,663; an actual increase of 9,613 students. These figures are a troublesome statistical truth for the private higher education sector in Taiwan. Hence, many are now trying to find ways either to restructure its course programs or to attract international student enrolments. International Journal of Research Studies in Education 51 Ching, G. S. Table 3 Total student population from 2011 to 2019 School year Private HEIs Public HEIs 2011 753,935 279,050 2012 757,693 0.5% 280,348 0.5% 2013 754,217 -0.5% 281,317 0.3% 2014 753,208 -0.1% 283,854 0.9% 2015 748,189 -0.7% 287,029 1.1% 2016 726,066 -3.0% 289,332 0.8% 2017 695,661 -4.2% 290,266 0.3% 2018 672,636 -3.3% 289,269 -0.3% 2019 643,855 -4.3% 288,663 -0.2% Source . https://stats.moe.gov.tw As for Table 4, note that comparing 2008 to 2019 school year, it would seem that the number of both public and private universities are increasing (public: from 41 to 45, private: from 60 to 81). However, careful analysis of the detailed yearly changes would depict that colleges (including junior colleges) are actually transforming, upgrading, and diversifying their course offerings and transition into either a traditional (comprehensive) university or into university of science and technology (technical vocational university). Consider the various transformation and changes; the total number of institutions has actually decreased from 160 to 152. Table 4 Changes in HEIs numbers School Junior colleges Colleges Universities Overall Year Private Public Private Public Private Public 2008 12 3 37 7 60 41 160 2009 12 3 35 8 63 41 162 2010 12 3 30 5 67 44 161 2011 12 3 27 4 70 45 161 2012 12 2 24 4 73 47 162 2013 12 2 22 3 75 47 161 2014 12 2 20 1 76 48 159 2015 11 2 18 1 78 48 158 2016 11 2 18 1 78 48 158 2017 11 2 14 1 82 47 157 2018 10 2 13 1 82 45 153 2019 10 2 13 1 81 45 152 Source .