National Taiwan University recently issued an official letter to its faculty and administrative staff headlined: "To safeguard the autonomy of universities, do not respond to media questionnaires." The letter was later published in the university's bulletin, the NTU News (台大校訊). The content of the letter went something like this: To safeguard the autonomy of universities, and considering the variety in the historical backgrounds of each university and regional peculiarities ... The ROC Association of National Universities (國立大學校院協會) has always advocated that universities be compatible with social trends ... a process which cannot be quantified by any simple method ... If the media requests information and asks you to answer evaluative questionnaires, [we request] that management, faculty and staff members not to respond." The letter also asked other national and private universities to follow suit.
Is this the way to maintain the independence of universities? After all, how should we evaluate universities?
We are both elated and worried by the Ministry of Education's gradual easing of restrictive policies on universities. We are elated because universities, especially public universities, will finally be free to develop their own curriculum and methods of instruction, but we are worried because "liberalization" does not guarantee efficiency and excellence.
Economists have always advocated liberalization because, with free competition, the market will ensure the survival of the superior product while weeding out the inferior.
The key to this competition lies in the so-called "market mechanism." However, in Taiwan, it is difficult for university education to operate within the market mechanism because Taiwan has many public universities which do not operate on the "users pay" market principle. Also, we do not believe that education can conform completely with the principles of the market mechanism because it has important characteristics that cause the market mechanism to fail. It is therefore necessary to impose an artificial system to reward superior performance to rectify its operation under the market mechanism after liberalization. Generally, an evaluation system serves this purpose.
If there is only liberalization and no complementary evaluation system, then inevitably, the quality of national universities will decline. In fact, national universities, like state-run enterprises, are relatively less efficient than private universities. That today's national universities are superior to their private counterparts is purely the result of the piles of money they receive. If a properly run private university receives the kind of budget the national universities currently do, they could certainly have unlimited potential.
In this context, allowing more autonomy for national universities without an evaluation system, or with an evaluation system that does not effectively reward superior performance, then national universities will inevitably degenerate into venues for power struggles -- the inevitable result of institutes with power and privileges but no responsibility. To be honest, any move by the education ministry to ease restrictions on universities -- whether it is the freedom to elect its own president, autonomy in personnel appointments, or freedom to set tuition fees and courses -- will be irresponsible if not accompanied by an evaluation system.
But then how do we make the evaluation? Evaluation is a difficult job and none is flawless. Media evaluations can be fragmentary or crude, but a ban on media evaluations will inevitably cause the quality of evaluations to fall.
In the past, only the education ministry conducted occasional evaluations on universities. Setting aside the quality of these evaluations, they are a complete waste of human and material resources because they are not made public and thus cannot serve as a basis for judgment. Also, the quality of these evaluations is usually poor, not because of poor capabilities, incomplete evaluation or a lack of data or budget. Rather, it is because the evaluations themselves are outside the market mechanism. Without competition, quality will fall. That is a general principle that does not change. Some industries with no competition (ie, monopolies) can be very efficient in the beginning. However, almost without any exception, the quality begins to fall and hardly ever recovers afterwards.
Will allowing each university to do its own evaluation bring any change to the ministry's evaluations? My conclusion is: it will not make any difference. The reason is very simple. Private universities can hardly expect to compete with national universities any time soon given the latter's superior resources. It is also unlikely that the ministry will use the evaluation results to carry out a reward-and-punishment program on national universities. Now, how can the ministry and the universities improve the quality of their evaluations while there is no competition?
It is true that universities and their departments have various characteristics that are difficult to quantify. It is also true that academic development can be multi-faceted. But what do media evaluations have to do with university autonomy? In fact, rejecting media evaluations will only create a monopoly on evaluations and cause their quality to decline.
We can criticize the media when they do not do a good job. Other media can also do their own different evaluations. They can be improved on exactly because they are open to criticism and competition, which will allow the establishment of a "market mechanism." Insofar as this market mechanism can bring dynamic evaluations and achieve the result of reward-and-punishment, it is a good system. How can we do away with competitive evaluations and embrace a monopoly?
It is difficult to quantify the unique features and performance of each department, but it is generally accepted in other countries that while some universities are strong in particular areas, their overall performance may not necessarily be good. As this is all useful information, why can't we quantify it?
It is difficult to quantify the results of research, but aren't the new strict quantification standards like Science Index and Social Science Index becoming popular?
In the same issue, the NTU News bulletin also called for an "all-out promotion of teaching evaluations." Aren't many departments going to be graded the same way in this regard?
The ROC Association of National Universities seems to be playing a role above that of the education ministry in that it even demanded private universities follow suit. In fact, just like the media, any association can serve as a balancing role in the "market mechanism." However, when it shuts out and uses the authority of the universities to pressure others, it becomes a monopolizer.
Once a monopoly takes shape, the universities will free from all supervision. Then how will we improve the quality of evaluations and the universities?
Chang Ching-hsi (
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