As a result of a falling birthrate, enrollment in four-year technical programs and two-year junior colleges at 27 private universities has dropped to less than 60 percent, while nine universities have had to close in the past few years. Keeping up enrollment has clearly developed into a crisis at private universities.
Ministry of Education regulations state that if a university’s freshman enrollment is less than 60 percent for two consecutive years, it is to be placed on the ministry’s watch list, and could be forced to close. This places significant pressure on most private universities.
Since the government expanded the 12-year Basic Education policy to include private schools in 2015, many primary, secondary and vocational school students no longer need to pay tuition fees as part of the program, while the salaries of private school teachers have been raised to the level of public school teachers. A similar approach applies to kindergarten students.
The policy does not apply to private universities, although their tuition fees are about 2.5 times higher than those of public universities. Since some private universities face difficulty in attracting students, salaries for teachers at those schools are lower than at public schools. This is unfair to students and teachers. The government must urgently apply a “quasi-nationalization” policy to higher education.
The number of colleges and universities surged after educational reform groups called for more senior-high schools and universities in 1994. The purpose was to relieve pressure on students and improve the nation’s overall educational level. In response to the call, the government simply approved upgrades of most public and private five-year junior colleges to colleges or universities of science and technology, but failed to insist that only the government be allowed to establish new universities.
The Cabinet’s educational reform committee promoted a free market mechanism and allowed the establishment of private universities, and the government accepted the suggestion to save trouble, with the result that the number of private universities peaked at 105. As there is a serious shortage of students, some private schools have either stopped enrollment or closed down.
It is the government’s responsibility to provide comprehensive and modern education. Passing this responsibility to the free market could result in uneven quality of higher education. Even in extremely capitalistic societies, the government has taken the responsibility of establishing public universities. Today, the proportion of public to private university students is about four to one in the US, the exact opposite of Taiwan, as the number of private university students is double the number of public university students.
The main purpose of public universities is to give people a chance to receive higher education, and the main purpose of private universities is to develop education with special features.
Unfortunately, the positioning of Taiwan’s public and private universities has been mixed up. Instead of taking the responsibility for opening public universities, the government simply approved the upgrade of most public and private junior colleges, resulting in a wave of closures as the birthrate has fallen.
It is time to push for a “quasi-nationalization” policy on private universities. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) must keep her promise to increase the number of public university students to more than half of the number of university students, one of the goals of the government’s “10-year policy guidelines.”
Chen Chien-hsien is an assistant professor at Meiho University’s Department of Social Work.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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