The presidential candidates have finally touched on the issue of university education in their campaigns, although most of the attention has been paid to subsidies for short-term study abroad programs and student loans, not the deeper crisis facing higher education in Taiwan.
At a time when half of the universities face closure within the next five years, many private universities are prioritizing students over teachers for the sake of student retention, and the Ministry of Education is merely kicking the can down the road.
The ministry held an industry-academia seminar, during which officials obsessed over flipped higher education and innovative vocational education, while private university presidents were saying that the most urgent task is to attract enough students to survive.
For organizations that have fallen on hard times, vision and mission statements are noble, but unlikely to save the day.
Despite being nonprofit organizations, universities essentially operate as businesses, and this is particularly true for private universities, which lose not only income, but also ministry subsidies when they fail to recruit enough students.
However, while schools have been counting heads and making every effort to recruit and retain students, they have tolerated students neglecting their studies. As a result, professors either do not dare or are unwilling to be tough on students.
Even if every senior and vocational high-school student applied to a university, there would still be a shortfall in student numbers.
Many young people who should not have gone to college have done so, wasting school resources and their own time, when they could have found jobs more suited to their personalities and skillsets straight out of high school.
Unfortunately, enthusiastic parents force them to attend college against their will, causing ridiculous world records, such as university admission rates as high as 90 percent or more.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, and even though it has legal tools such as the “sunset clause” and the university withdrawal mechanism, the government has failed to find a solution.
However, the sunset clause takes time and universities must transform themselves to withdraw from the market.
The ministry demands that poorly managed universities withdraw from the market, but it also refuses to allow schools to change their land and building use.
Despite its attempt to terminate schools with poor enrollment rates through “mercy killing,” the government is delaying the termination process.
The delay harms society, the government, universities and the students, but indifferent officials care only about themselves.
The number of Taiwanese of college age is expected to fall below 110,000 next year.
The numbers are forecast to continue to drop by 6,000 to 7,000 students per year, until it only totals 75,000 by 2025.
By that time, public universities are likely to pick up 50,000 Taiwanese of college age, while nearly 80 colleges and universities fight for the remaining 25,000.
Ultimately, that could mean that at least 50 schools would end up with no one to teach.
Maybe part of the ministry’s wishful thinking is to confiscate barren campus properties one after the other as these universities close down. It is a worrying thought.
Andrew Huang is a visiting professor at Finland’s Aalto University.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
RSS