Two-Track Education--The Technical and Vocational Education System in Flux

The technical and vocational education infrastructure has undergone major changes over the last few years. Vocational high schools have been reduced in scale and become increasingly unclear about their role, while senior technical colleges have begun to resemble standard universities, with many actually choosing to upgrade to university status. With such developments the sector has increasingly given the impression of being on the verge of collapse.

Chou Chang-hung, principal of National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST), describes the current state of chaos: "The processes, methods and objectives of technical and vocational education are at present unclear."

Tien Chen-jung, director of the Department of Industrial Technology Education at National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) expresses the same sentiment: "Education policy is very unclear about the role of technical and vocational education and it is this lack of direction that gives most cause for concern."

Chu Yun-peng, president of Jin-Wen Institute of Technology, makes the following observation: "The technical and vocational system is a major part of secondary and higher education. Whether it is able to successfully transform itself will to a certain extent be an important indicator as to whether the Taiwanese economy can be smoothly upgraded."

In 1999 the China Institute of Technology and Lufthansa Technical Training launched a technical cooperative venture, establishing the China Aviation School. This is the only aircraft maintenance school approved by Taiwan's Civil Aeronautics Administration.

Unclear road signs

The most obvious questions are, why does technical and vocational education need to change in the first place? What role has this type of education previously played in Taiwan? And what sort of transformation is envisaged?

Lin Teng-chiao, a senior specialist in the Ministry of Education's Department of Technological and Vocational Education (DTVE) points out that in its early stages technical and vocational education in Taiwan was highly functional in nature, cultivating technical experts able to assist with national economic development. Both vocational senior high schools, which were part of secondary education, and for technical colleges, positioned at the tertiary level, were essentially conceived as providing the final stage of education by preparing students for employment, and placing them in jobs. This was in contrast to "first track" education, which was only considered complete with graduation from university.

However, the expansion of higher technical and vocational education in recent years has resulted in a gradual loss of focus at the secondary level. At the same time, academic universities have begun to establish their own "technical and vocational" faculties as a way of providing for individual career development. Understandably these developments have served to blur the distinction between vocational and academic education. As such, technical and vocational colleges have been forced to address a pressing concern, namely whether they should seek to restore the earlier differentiation or try to develop in ways that would essentially make them more like standard universities and colleges.

Any review of the earlier approach shows that the vocational education system in Taiwan has produced many industrial experts and as such has made an indispensable contribution to economic development.

The earliest technical and vocational school in China, the Fujian Province Naval Academy, was established in 1866 to train marine and fishery experts. In 1931 the National Government drafted the "Vocational School Regulations," which divided such schools into four categories: Type A (mining and metallurgy, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemical engineering, civil engineering), Type B (agronomy, forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries), Type C (banking, insurance, accounting, statistics, international trade) and Type D (medicine, pharmacy, art, music, physical education).

Private individuals were first allowed to establish schools in 1961, and as a result the number of vocational schools expanded rapidly. Beginning in 1969 the government took a more active approach to the promotion of vocational education, encouraging an expansion in the number of schools and increasing the ratio of senior high school to vocational high school students over a number of years, from 6:4 to 3:7. This was seen as the best way to promote industrial development at the time.

In 1974 the ROC government established the top institution Taiwan's technical and vocational education system-the Taiwan Industrial Technology College. This completed the construction of a comprehensive technical and vocational education system, stretching from vocational high schools to vocational colleges and technical colleges.

What sort of future can the technical and vocational education system and the over one million students it caters for look forward to? This is an issue that relates directly to the future of Taiwanese industry.

Always second place

Despite its important achievements in the service of Taiwan's industrialization, technical and vocational education was never accorded the respect and social position it deserved. As a result, it has found it difficult to shed the public impression of providing a "second rate education" or being a "second choice." In Taiwan the first choice of students graduating from junior high school has always been to attend senior high school. Only those unable to pass the admission examinations take the second best choice available and apply to go to a vocational high school or a vocational college. In this sense, a technical or vocational education has consistently been viewed as something students do because they have no other choice, not because they might actually be interested.

Why has vocational education always played second fiddle in this way? Former DTEV director Wu Ching-chi, who is now director of the Taipei City Bureau of Education, argues that technical and vocational education has not been given either the importance or respect it deserves, a fact he puts down to "an obsession with educational advancement and over-concentration on examination success." Wu believes that any moral stance on the issue is doomed to failure, because "the only way technical and vocational schools can secure the respect and position they deserve is through a plan that satisfies students' needs for educational advancement and progress."

Sun Yung-ching, president of China Institute of Technology, points out that over 80% of students who graduated from the institute's predecessor, the China Business and Industry Vocational School, decided to seek gainful employment immediately, but over the last decade there has been a steady increase in the number of students wanting to stay on in education. Vocational students often choose to change their area of specialty to such subjects as Chinese language studies or history in order to obtain a degree. In terms of educational resources and the cultivation of experts this amounts to a great waste.

In 1996, in order to make it easier for technical and vocational students to continue in education, then education minister Wu Ching proposed a new policy by which vocational education would be promoted as part of a two-track education policy. This involved encouraging the best performing vocational colleges to transform themselves into technical colleges. The first schools given permission to make the change included Chianan Medical College, Kunshan Engineering College and Nantai Business College.

Today the technical and vocational education system in Taiwan is comprehensive, with over 1.3 million students and more than 300,000 teachers, in junior high school technology classes, vocational senior high schools, vocational colleges, technical colleges and technical universities. Courses taught range from agriculture, industry, business, fisheries, marine studies, medicine, home economics, restaurants and tourism, to art and foreign languages.

Although the rapid expansion of senior technical and vocational education has been able to meet student demand for degrees, another problem has arisen. With the rapid transformation of Taiwan's industrial structure, there has been an increase in demand for individuals with specific skills. Vocational education now faces the problem of providing people with skills for which there is insufficient market demand.

The China Aviation School is located in Chutung. It has impressive professional training facilities for aircraft maintenance, including airplanes, engine repair training workshops, and avionic systems training workshops.

Supply and demand imbalance

With more and more people going into higher education, who is entering the employment market? There is an increasingly obvious shortage of labor, particularly at the basic level. In its 2001-2004 "New Millennium Human Resources Development Policy," the Council for Economic Planning and Development pointed out that there is an oversupply of mid-level human resources in Taiwan and a shortfall in both top-level professionals and basic-level employees. The figures quoted in the report show that in the period 2001-2004, the average shortfall in manpower per annum will be as high as 315,000 people. Breaking these figures down, there is a shortage of 52,000 senior level and managerial staff, and 287,000 basic level workers. In contrast, there is a surplus of 24,000 medium level personnel. The key reason for this surplus has been the expansion of higher education.

Evidence indicates that even with high unemployment showing no sign of falling, enterprises are still telling the government they are unable to find enough people to fill vacancies. Clearly then, the expansion of channels for higher education advancement has been unable to provide the sort of trained individuals industry needs. In essence it seems likely this is the main reason for the current mismatching of the labor markets.

As a result, the problems faced by technical and vocational schools are extremely serious. Tsai Ching-yen, deputy chairperson of the Executive Yuan's Science and Technology Advisory Group, points out that a survey commissioned by the group last year on the demand for industrial technology professionals from the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Institute for Information Industry revealed that enterprises preferred students who graduated from a handful of universities, including National Taiwan University, National Chiao Tung University and National Tsing Hua University. They were reluctant to take on graduates from the technical and vocational education system, because they are seen as producing students who fall short of industry's demands.

Chang Tien-fu, director of the Department of Education Policy and Administration at National Chi Nan University, suggests that the vocational system has long since lost its practical orientation, causing great confusion in industry and among potential students.

At present, the widely held view of scholars in the field of vocational education is that the system is unable to keep pace with the rapid changes industry is currently undergoing. There is also a serious lack of synchronicity between the planning of curriculums and the needs of industry. This situation is leading to an over-concentration on theory at the expense of practical experience, which ultimately means students find themselves unable to adapt to actual work needs once they graduate.

The Department of Food Science at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology teaches not only theoretical research, but also production methods. The students in the picture at left are displaying wines they produced themselves.

Not enough to go round

Recently, Academia Sinica president Lee Yuan-tseh even went as far as to suggest: "Technical and vocational students do not learn the fundamentals or gain practical experience when they should." However, the reason for these problems in vocational institutions can in fact be traced back to a lack of long-term planning in education policy. It is this that is responsible for the difficulties facing the "second-track" approach.

Firstly, the number of technical and vocational schools has increased greatly in recent years, forcing them to face a reduction in student numbers and as such a serious threat to their survival.

In just ten years the number of universities and colleges in Taiwan has increased from 50 to 154, and they have enrolled something over 1.2 million students. But the number of children born in Taiwan each year has fallen from over 410,000 in the 1980s to only something over 250,000 in 2001. In other words, demographic factors make it inevitable that schools will face a steady fall in student numbers. This explains why when annual student recruitment season comes around, schools are increasingly using any strategy possible to attract new enrollments.

In the 2002 academic year, standard universities and technical/vocational colleges enrolled more than 244,000 students. Indeed, enrollment levels in higher education already exceed 80%. According to Ministry of Education figures, the number of places available in higher education in 2000 stood at 118% of the number of students graduating from senior high school. This state of affairs has prompted comments that the former "narrow door" to educational achievement has been widened so much it is now an "automatic door," and that as a direct result student quality has declined.

The Institute of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation at Pingtung University of Science and Technology calls itself a mini United Nations. Foreign students have enrolled in the department from a total of 25 foreign countries, including countries in Africa, Asia and Central America. It has played an important role in the development of "technical and vocational diplomacy."

Ignoring earlier successes

With falling student numbers and faced with apparent apathy, technical and vocational colleges have been forced to adjust their developmental goals in order to survive, and this has thrown the entire system into crisis.

Chang Tien-fu says: "Schools chose to focus on transforming themselves and in the process forgot their own position and character." Although many schools did change their name, their relative position in the educational hierarchy was not improved. On the contrary, having reorganized themselves many technical and vocational schools began to turn their back on earlier achievements. In other words, they stopped focusing on the need for practical work and started to emphasize theory and R&D.

Professor Huang You-min of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, which was upgraded from National Taiwan Institute of Technology only six years ago, suggests that the number of research theses produced is only one indicator of the quality of a school. He believes that whether students prove useful to industry after graduating is a more important evaluation standard for technical and vocational colleges.

A survey of 1000 major enterprises in Taiwan shows that many firms characterize technical and vocational graduates as "loyal," "able to engage in teamwork," "willing to learn and flexible." But in ranking preferred institutions of higher learning the list reads: National Cheng Kung University, National Taiwan University, National Chiao Tung University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chengchi University. The first technical or vocational colleges to be named are National Taipei University of Technology and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, in sixth and seventh place respectively. This is a clear indication that graduates from higher technical and vocational schools that continue to highlight practical work remain highly prized by the local business community.

It is a great pity, but as the number of graduation credits required to graduate from the vocational system has declined over the years, and with no rules indicating the minimum number of credits to be earned from practical work, related classes have come under pressure. As a result, many private schools have chosen to cut subjects that involve physical work or extra financing, which ensures students are given fewer and fewer opportunities to familiarize themselves with actual physical operations.

Huang You-min observes: "Research depends on brains, but realizing goals depends on technology." Taiwan has long been known for its mastery of manufacturing, which most certainly depends on refined technology. With the technical and vocational education system now becoming more research-oriented, it has to be asked who will do the work of engineering, prototyping, production and marketing in the future?

Sun Yung-ching observes that "in industrial education, time is money." The central reason why technical and vocational students are unable to meet the demands of industry is that the equipment they need to train on is too expensive. Schools are unable to meet the financial burden of constantly upgrading facilities and industry is unwilling to receive students for training in their plants, on the one hand because of the possible impact on output, but also out of genuine concern that students could damage precision machinery. As a result, schools often replace hands-on experience with "virtual reality" in the form of video tapes of manufacturing processes.

Tien Chen-jung points out that Taiwan's technical and vocational schools turned themselves into technical colleges and then science and technology universities under the guidance of the Ministry of Education. He complains that a failure to ask questions about the nature of these schools, the quality of students and the curriculums on offer led to a situation where schools fought tooth and nail to enroll students at all costs.

Senior high school graduates, regarded in the educational first track as being more talented, are now coveted by second track institutions too. NPUST president Chou Chang-hung is frank in his admission that he would fully support a change in the rules allowing his school to enroll senior high school students without being subject to the current 30% limit. He even says he would be willing to remove the words "science and technology" from the school's name, turning it into a normal university.

In January 2003, Hongkuang University, located in Shalu, Taichung County changed its designation from a technical college to that of a science and technology university. The picture shows classes in the Department of Childcare and Education.

Reorganization = elimination?

While some science and technology universities were "willing" to become more like standard universities, others have disappeared altogether under the Ministry of Education's policy of reorganization.

Two years ago, Liu Chao-han, former president of National Central University, made the following four proposals at a meeting of the Executive Yuan's Commission on Higher Education: A unified university system, integrated schools, integration between schools, and restructuring.

Lin Teng-chiao of the DTEV indicates that the promotion of university restructuring is currently the central plank of Ministry of Education work. He says: "General higher education is the trend of the future." In other words, if one wishes to shift the focus from the cultivation of specialists to a more national program, it is general universities that can provide students with more choices and opportunities for interaction. Following the diversification of teaching resources students are not guaranteed a teaching position. Therefore many teachers colleges have been looking to develop in other directions, and mergers have already become an identifiable trend.

Following the merger of Chianan Technical College and Chiayi Teachers College, there have been rumors of discussions over possible mergers between many institutions: National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and National Taiwan Normal University; National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences and National Kaohsiung Normal University; National Pingtung Teachers College and National Pingtung University of Science and Technology; National Chinyi Institute of Technology, National Taichung Institute of Technology and National Taichung Nursing College; National Hualien Teachers College and National Dong Hwa University; and Taipei Municipal Teachers College and Taipei Physical Education College.

NTUST president Chen Shun-tien claims that the advantage in merging schools together is that if done properly they complement one another. He believes his own arrangement with NTNU will help students improve in the humanities, languages and interpersonal relations. It may also change the source of enrollments making it easier to attract more talented high school students.

However, once news of school mergers becomes common knowledge many dissenting voices are heard, especially over the proposed merger between NTUST and NTNU, which is the country's top teachers college. As Professor Huang You-min of NTUST's Department of Mechanical Engineering observes: "This move would not only undermine the very foundation of technical and vocational education, it would also stifle the economic development of Taiwanese industry." Lacking prominent schools, the vocational system would be even less likely to be able to attract students, bringing the possibility of complete collapse that bit nearer. At the same time, the fact that industry will be unable to enroll individuals with practical hands-on experience could also serve to reduce enterprise and national competitiveness.

An overview of global education reveals that almost all countries have some form of technical and vocational education system. Even with improved innovative university research, the later-stage activities of manufacturing and mass production are always dependent on the vocational system. With this in mind, Huang observes: "Mergers are not an effective cure for the problems facing higher education, and if such measures result in the disappearance of vocational education then I am afraid they may well turn out to be a purgative for the national industrial economy as a whole. A decade from now Taiwan could well find itself facing a shortfall in high-quality middle-level technical personnel with practical experience. At the same time, it is also likely the manufacturing sector will face difficulties in terms of ensuring product commercialization and there will be a decline in quality, making it increasingly impossible to compete with countries such as South Korea and mainland China.

Tien Chen-jung predicts that if the vocational education system does collapse, there will be a huge imbalance in the supply and demand of labor in Taiwan for perhaps as long as 20 years.

The Department of Applied Cosmetology at Hongkuang University, teaches the technology behind the production of cosmetics products, beauty care techniques, culture art and management classes. The department aims to produce students with a basic understanding of both theoretical and practical aspects of the industry.

Getting on track after graduation

Many people have come to the conclusion that technical and vocational education should not be seen as an appendage to education policy but as an important vehicle for the cultivation of important professionals essential to overall national economic development. In consequence, many teachers in the vocational system have remained at their posts. Indeed, in recent years several experts have chosen to join their ranks in an attempt to plot a brighter future for this educational second track.

Last year Chu Yun-peng, who left the more cloistered world of the Academia Sinica to become president of Jin-Wen Institute of Technology, argued for the need to enhance the standard of technical and vocational education, whilst adhering to core principles. In other words, ensuring students are employable remains the focus of vocational education. Chu maintains: "Technical and vocational colleges need a systematic approach to ensure students receive practical experience at local enterprises, or that business people take practical courses at their schools."

Wen Shih-jen, deputy CEO of computer manufacturer Inventec, has likened the importance of cooperation between technical and vocational education and industry to laying the "last mile" in establishing the Internet: "The final section needed to ensure the Internet is linked with actual users is known as the 'last mile.' Without this section users would be unable to get online and the Internet would be a wasted opportunity."

Recently, Jin-Wen Institute of Technology and Inventec have signed a cooperative agreement whereby the school will provide premises and the enterprise will provide information technology along with data on firms' needs, to draw up "specifications" for the sort of people enterprises will need to hire in future, and the skills they will be required to possess. The idea is that schools can then devise relevant courses on the basis of these specifications.

Chu Yun-peng says: "We have to go back to basics in technical and vocational education." In the past many courses accommodated the expertise of teachers, but now the focus will be given over to the needs of enterprises. At Jin-Wen Institute of Technology the objective today is to ensure students are able to "be useful workers as soon as they graduate."

Chu believes that the distinction between technical and vocational education and standard universities should be retained, but he views this not as a determination of quality but the expression of different educational choices: "Standard universities have their own niche areas and areas of expertise, but so too do technical and vocational colleges."

Tien Chen-jung suggests that schools should evaluate a variety of factors, including organization, the environment in which they operate and the employment market, refining their focus and seeking greater market differentiation as the only answer to many of the problems they currently face: "Vocational colleges should develop and highlight their own distinctive educational characteristics. They should avoid chasing fashions or turning their backs on what they are good at in an attempt to be more like standard universities."

The Department of Food Science at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology teaches not only theoretical research, but also production methods. The students in the picture at left are displaying wines they produced themselves.

A temporary solution

In point of fact, the development of technical and vocational education cannot be considered in isolation from the motivations of broader education policy. At a time when standard universities and colleges seem unsure of their own development and are establishing an increasing number of money-making, functional departments, they have begun to impinge on a market formerly considered the preserve of vocational schools. Little wonder then that concerns have been voiced that measures introduced by the Ministry of Education will gradually result in the collapse of technical and vocational education.

Addressing these concerns, Lin Teng-chiao of the DTVE says that over 60% of the huge technical and vocational education system cannot simply be abolished, but there will inevitably be changes in what it provides. In other words, as training-based education and the provision of basic knowledge are strengthened while specialist technical aspects are reduced, the clearly defined nature of the technical and vocational system is likely to become much less distinct.

The steady decline in the number of students and the concomitant increase in competition between vocational colleges has resulted in a situation where "exporting" technical and vocational education is now heralded as one way for colleges to prop up their finances.

In January 2002 Yang Chao-hsiang, chairman of the National Policy Foundation's Education and Culture Group, proposed "exporting technical and vocational education, expanding the realm of education."

Although the large-scale establishment of technical and vocational colleges over the last few years has led to a fall in quality, Yang believes that one of Taiwan's most suitable and attractive exports is vocational education. "We not only posses breadth and depth in the field of vocational education, we have in the past also trained many experts in economic construction who played an important role in the creation of the Taiwan miracle. These are lessons many developing countries would benefit greatly from learning." Yang offers examples of the successful export of such technical education. Every summer vacation, Saudi Arabia sends teachers and students to receive training at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, renowned for its agricultural technology. The technical and vocational education assistance program NTUST provides to Costa Rica has also been widely praised by the host country.

Lin Teng-chiao is also of the opinion that allowing schools to provide courses overseas or encouraging foreign students to attend programs in Taiwan may well prove a possible future approach.

Statistics from overseas indicate that for every two overseas students one local employment opportunity is created. Around 540,000 foreign students attend schools in the US, creating annual revenue worth US$11 billion. In Australia the educational services sector is the country's third largest export industry.

At the beginning of March 2003 representatives from 29 vocational colleges in Taiwan participated in the first Southeast Asia technical and vocational education expo, held in Malaysia. Minister of Education Huang Jung-tsun was also present and lauded the quality of vocational education in Taiwan. As a result some schools were able to establish strategic alliances with both public and independent junior high schools and with industry in Malaysia. As well as providing scholarships to encourage students to study in Taiwan, vocational colleges will in future also allow teachers to visit Malaysia to engage in cooperative programs with local firms to assist them in enhancing their technology.

However, educational exports will not solve all the problems facing higher technical and vocational education in Taiwan. What is needed above all else is clear and resolute policy, so that the second track of national education policy is finally accorded the importance it deserves. Only on this basis can a genuine effort be made to resolve the many problems the sector currently faces.

The Department of Applied Cosmetology at Hongkuang University, teaches the technology behind the production of cosmetics products, beauty care techniques, culture art and management classes. The department aims to produce students with a basic understanding of both theoretical and practical aspects of the industry.

The Pingtung University of Science and Technology is famous for its work in the field of agriculture. The Department of Animal Science was first established over 30 years ago, focusing on such practical hands-on training as the automated management of livestock and product processing.