Student enrollment across all age levels last year fell by 273,000 compared with five years ago, although participation in experimental education grew by 50 percent, Ministry of Education (MOE) data showed.
The decline, which accounts for 6.4 percent fewer students compared with 2019, was likely due to Taiwan’s declining birthrate, the ministry said.
However, a record-high 27,000 students were enrolled in experimental education programs last year, it added.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The statistics also showed that the number of private kindergartens had decreased by 62 last year, while the number of public kindergartens increased by 20, resulting in a total of 6,657 kindergartens nationwide.
Overall, there were 273 more public kindergartens last year than in 2019.
This was due to continued expansion of public early childhood education services, which resulted in 460 public kindergartens being added over the five-year period, it said.
In the same period, the number of private kindergartens dropped by 187, it added.
A total of 3.99 million students are currently enrolled across all educational levels, with elementary-school students accounting for the largest share at 1.2 million, the statistics showed.
That is followed by 1.07 million university and college students, representing 139,000 fewer university students compared with 2019, the data showed.
Of those students enrolled at the university and college level, 513,000, or 47.7 percent, are enrolled in science and technology programs, followed by 364,000, or 33.8 percent, in social sciences and 198,000, or 18.4 percent, in the humanities.
The number of students enrolled in science, technology, engineering or mathematics fields at the university and college level increased by 4.5 percent compared with 2019, the statistics showed.
This year, 140 schools were approved to offer experimental education programs, and nearly 27,000 students were enrolled in those programs — an increase of 8,911 students over 2019, the ministry said.
Experimental education is categorized into three types: school-based, public-private partnership and non-school-based education. Among these, school-based experimental education has grown the fastest, with the number of approved schools nearly doubling over the past five years, it said.
Student participation in the category rose to 12,164 last year from 7,675 in 2019 — an increase of nearly 60 percent, the ministry said.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
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