Challenges and Prospects for Taiwan’s Higher Education

The present article deals with the growth profile and accompanying problems in Taiwan’s higher education over the past two decades. Some thorny issues are identified, such as the continuingly decreasing fertility rate, the consequent shortage of students for enrollment, and the relatively low average annual expenditure of each tertiary education student by international comparison. Furthermore, Taiwan’s higher education community has to compete bitterly for international recognition with very limited funding resources. In response to these challenges, Taiwan’s higher education manages to react with some effective measures, such as the balancing between quality research and quality education, the implementation of quality assurance system, the search for effective ways to nurture and recruit young talents and high-profile human capital, and the monitoring of academic progress. Finally, in the prospect of a brighter future, the universities are trying to convince the government to draft an umbrella of policies to help Taiwan’s higher education react adequately. The consensus asks for a thoughtful mission setting and international benchmarking from the university and the nation and urges to launch the Higher Education Macro Planning (HEMP) and a road map for the universities.