7 .4 Re-regulation of teacher education

However,as the Taiwanese society has progressed into a technology-intensive knowledge society,the demand has intensified for high-quality teachers who are able to prepare future citizens with higher levels of knowledge,competency,and creativity (Liou, 2005). With the rising public demand for teacher accountability and quality assurance in education,such an open market policy with lenient government control has met with increasing criticism (Liou,2005; Tseng & Chang,2005; Wu,2006).

Opponents contended that under such a loose and chaotic

“

teachers were produced and teacher quality has declined (Hsu,2009). Thus,the

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government should tighten its control with stricter standards in order to raise teacher quality (Wu,2006). Such public outcries have once again pushed the government to increase its control over teacher education.

The current democratic government exerts its control by tightening curriculum regulations and implementing teacher certification examination. By doing so,the government has recently revised the official course listings for all the teachingsu吋凹的，

stipulating a fixed combination of required and elective courses and leaving little space for individual programs to provide courses according to their own_pu中oses and resources _(扎!fOE， 2003, 2007). Further,the 扎!finistry of Education holds the right to approve or reject the education/pedagogy course list of individual programs who have to apply for MOE approval when designing and offering new courses for their students (MOE,2004). In addition, the government has started a national teacher certification examination since 2005 to ensure the quality of graduates from various programs at the end point.(Lin,Wang, & _Te嗯， 2007). All these developments have demonstrated a tendency of teacher education policy to swing from market-based diversification back to government-controlled uniformity once again.

In conclusion,due to the historical,political and social contexts,the development of teacher education in Taiwan over the past six decades has seen a suspension between the forces of government-controlled uniformity and program-based diversification.

Due to a long period of strict centralized control and an emergence of program-based deregulation, the curriculum of teacher education programs in Taiwan has demonstrated a pattern of restricted diversity within a generally uniformed framework.

Such a curriculum pattern reflects a compromised solution to the issue of how teacher quality should be pursued. As mentioned above,both approaches of program-based diversification and government-controlled regulation attempt to pursue teacher quality, yet through contrasting strategies. The former assumes that diversity and competition in the open market will inspire innovations and creativity and ensure the strongest and best to emerge; the latter argues that only through establishing uniformed standards by

cen仕al authorities can teacher quality be achieved (Apple,2001; Furlong et aI.,2000).

王秀施 Diversity withinUnifonnity: 甘leDynamics of^GovemmentControl 缸ld

Program Diversity in Teacher EducationCurriculum in Taiwan 131

These two seemingly conflicting ideologies are compromised in the Taiwanese case. On one hand,the government did establish a common structure and core courses to ensure a minimum level of quality in the process of teacher education; on the other hand, the programs did enjoy a certain degree of autonomy to offer a variety of courses to strengthen,refine and add on areas/topics ignored by the government standards and to produce graduates with diverse traits and specializations. In this way,afu阻reteaching force equipped with a common set of core knowledge and some degree of diverse skills and strengths are produced,and in this way teacher quality may be ensured.

8. Recommendations

Based on the findings of the present study, the following five implications/

suggestions could be made.

8.1 Releasing state control over curriculum

First of all,Taiwanese government is advised to release its control over teacher education curriculum. In the current Taiwanese system,the government has tightened the control over all aspects,including “input,"“process" and “output," of teacher education and thus reduced the diversity of teacher education programs. However, international trend has shown that major countries such as the US,UK, Germany and Japan,tend to take a strict control over the "output"(licensure) but grant more diversity over the “input" (recruitment) and “process" (curriculum) of teacher education (Feiman-Nemser,1990; Landman & Ozga,1995; Lee,2008; Liang,2008; Popkewitz, 1995; Zeichner & Conklin,2005). Each program may recruit and train students according to its specific goals and resources and the government takes charge to assure the quality of their graduates at the end point. In this way,diversity may flourish while quality could still be con甘olled(Lucas,1999; Morris & Williamson,2000; Tsai,1997;

Yang,1999,2006). Thus,it is recommended that Taiwanese governmental control over teacher education curriculum be lessened.

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8.2 Enhancing program autonomy

Second, it is recommended that teacher education programs provide more program-specific courses to meet the program objectives and satisfy students' needs.

This study found that while some programs did provide certain new and unique courses to tailor to faculty specialties and students' needs,the majority of the programs were still more apt to conforming to the state-mandated courses than to devising program-specific courses.