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Council puts universities on the spot

Ten private and public colleges and universities have either been failed or put on probation for not reaching a standard set by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council (HEEAC), the Ministry of Education said yesterday.

The independent evaluation group said the institutions have one month to appeal the results. So far only two of the 10 institutions have said they are planning to appeal. The rest acknowledged their shortcomings and said they would try to raise their educational standards.

NATIONWIDE

The two-day evaluations were conducted between March and May this year at more than 242 academic departments at the 10 private and public universities across the nation.

It was found that more than 22.7 percent of the departments should be put on probation and 11.2 percent failed the evaluation.

Head of the ministry's Department of Higher Education, Ho Chou-fei (何卓飛), said that the ministry is authorized to withhold or slash subsidies to departments that are deemed substandard.

"All departments that have probationary status are not allowed to expand enrolment or establish a graduate program in the 2008-2009 school year and those that have failed evaluation must reduce enrolment by half," he said, adding departments face being shutdown should they fail next year's evaluation.

HEEAC official Wu Ching-shan (吳清山) said the schools were evaluated according to five indices; individual mission and the unique quality of the school, curriculum design and teacher quality, student aptitude, quality and quantity of the school's research papers, and overall performance alumni performance.

NO RANKINGS

The evaluation was conducted on a fail/pass basis and no rankings were made, he said.

The universities that were evaluated were Chuang Shan Medical University, Alethia University, Chung Hua University, Diwan University, National Ilan University, National Kaoshiung Universtiy, I-Shou University, National Chiayi University, Toko University and Hsingkuo University of Management.
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