Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) yesterday said that the nation’s universities would have to downsize by at least 10,000 faculty members by 2023 to deal with rapidly declining student numbers.
The idea is not to just close some universities, but to clearly see the big picture and resolve how at such a time, Wu said.
By the start of the 2016 school year, there will be 30,000 fewer students than now, which will reduce the demand for teachers, Wu said.
An expected increasing staff shortage will force the government to downsize, while requiring workers to produce twice the amount of products or services that individuals do today, Wu said, adding that declining birthrates would also create national security concerns.
There would be a surplus of educational facilities for the nation’s small population, which would mean the merger or closure of some facilities, Wu said.
No more than 1,500 new instructors have begun to work at universities nationwide, but Taiwan currently graduates more than 4,000 individuals with doctorates each year, Wu said.
The nation cannot shoulder such a great disparity between educational supply and demand, he said.
While downsizing is inevitable, the ministry must take care to provide for those made redundant, since they have areas of expertise, adding that graduates with doctorates should be steered toward the corporate sector to utilize their professional knowledge.
The corporate sector is not the only choice for college graduates and becoming entrepreneurs is also an option, Wu added, as he urged faculty members to focus on students’ future development, rather than concentrating solely on their own research.
National Chengchi University (NCCU) president Edward Chow (周行一) said the corporate sector often worries about whether graduates will be able to easily make the transition to corporate life, but it is not academia’s job to provide such personnel.
Taiwanese corporations need to consider what their definition of “talent” is, Chow said, adding that international corporations do not necessarily hire people who they think will seamlessly segue into their new jobs.
If local corporations are seeking to reduce the costs of human resources, businesses will not find any talented individuals, Chow said.
However, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) said academia should revise its attitudes and ask itself what it can do for society, adding that a large amount of the funding given to the Program for Teaching Excellence is being misused.
The Ministry of Education must be a positive model for academia and help steer academics into choices that benefit society, Hsu said.
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