Considering the historical development of higher education and teacher education in Taiwan, the demarcation of institutional type (academic vs. technological; normal vs.
non-normal) and program type (college, department, program of teacher education) do bear significance in understanding teacher education curriculum. As program-initiated (Type 3) courses is an indication of program autonomy, it is important to examine the number and ratio of such courses offered by different types of programs to see if autonomy varies with institutional characteristics. It may be inferred that academically-oriented universities, in general possessing more resources as the mainstream providers of secondary school teachers, may be more capable of initiating more program-Table 7 (continued)
specific courses than technological ones. Furthermore, normal universities, with their longstanding status and vast resources in the field of teacher education, may provide more program-specific courses than non-normal ones. And college of education, with its comprehensive scope and large pool of faculty in education, may offer more program-specific courses than department of education and than a single teacher education program.
Table 8 shows that, corresponding to our hypotheses, in general academic universities on average did offer more program-initiated courses (Median=9) than techonological universities (6); and public universities did initiate more courses (10) than private ones (6). However, it is surprising to see that, contrary to our expectation, normal universities did not offer more program-initiated courses, but in fact even provided slightly fewer (7) such courses than their non-normal counterparts (8). In addition, colleges of education (11) and departments of education (10) did provide more program-specific courses than teacher education programs (6).
Table 8 Median number of program-initiated courses by program
Type of institution N Median
Academic 28 9
Technological 13 6
N Public 24 10
Private 17 6
N Normal 5 7
Non-normal 36 8
College of Education 12 11
Department of Education 9 10
Teacher Education Program 20 6
When further dividing the 41 programs into 6 categories according to their institutional characteristics, it is worth noting that (see Figure 4) the technological university with a department of education (TU-DE) managed to offer the highest number (Median=11) of program-initiated courses. Non-normal universities with college of education (NNU-CE) or department of education (NNU-DE) on average provided 9 and 7 different program-initiated courses, respectively. In addition, teacher education programs in non-normal universities (NNU-TE) and technological universities (TU-TE) offered 6 courses, similar to those traditionally teacher training normal universities with comprehensive colleges of education (NU-CE).
Median Median number of program-initiated courses
12
2 4 6 8 10
0
11
9
7
6 6 6
TU-DE NNU-DE NNU-CE NU-CE NNU-TE TU-TE
Figure 4 Median number of program-initiated courses by programs
Furthermore, to examine the ratios of program-initiated courses in relation to the total number of courses provided by the 6 types of programs (see Figure 5), it is found that, for non-normal universities with a college of education (NNU-CE), program-initiated courses consisted of more than one thirds of their total courses (35%),
followed by 25% offered by department of education in non-normal universities (NNU-DE); 23% offered by department of education in technological universities (TU-(NNU-DE);
22% by teacher education program in non-normal universities (NNU-TE); and 17%
by teacher education in technological universities (TU-TE). Again, it is surprising to see that for normal universities with comprehensive colleges of education (NU-CE), program-initiated courses only constituted 15 percent of their total courses, the lowest ratio among the 6 types of institutions in the study.
Ratio Ratio of program-initiated courses to the total courses
NNU-CE NNU-DE TU-DE NNU-TE TU-TE NU-CE
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
35%
25% 23% 22%
17% 15%
Figure 5 Ratio of program-initiated courses by programs
In summary, diversity in program autonomy in offering self-initiated courses did vary with institutional characteristics and could be explained by the following three factors. First of all, resources and status do count. For example, academic and public universities, which in general possess more resources and prestige as mainstream providers of secondary school teachers, did enjoy higher level of autonomy than their technological and private counterparts. Second, program scale also matters. That’s why college of education, with its comprehensive scope and large faculty pool, were in general able to provide more program-specific courses than departments of education, and even more so than teacher education programs. In addition, institutional tradition
may also exert an influence. Contrary to the commonly-held assumptions that normal universities, with its longstanding status and vast resources in teacher training should be able to provide the most enriched and diversified courses among all types of institutions; however, in fact they demonstrated the lowest level of diversity in offering courses among all the institutions. Such unexpected result may be partially explained by the traditional role normal universities have assumed. As the major teacher training institutions since early years, normal universities had been under strict state control in terms of input, process and output of their training for many decades (Fwu & Wang, 2002). With such a tradition, they may become more accustomed to conforming to the state-mandated curriculum than developing diversified program-specific courses.
6. Conclusions
Based on the above research findings, the four research questions were answered.
First of all, to examine if “the programs vary in their course structure and course taking regulations,” the answer is negative as the course structure and regulations of TE programs did conform to MOE regulated structure. Secondly, to investigate if
“the programs vary among the number and types of courses they offer,” the answer is mixed. Although these programs did manage to initiate program-specific courses, an analysis of the number and ratio of the three types of courses found that they were more apt to conform to MOE regulations than to devise a diverse range of courses of their own. Thirdly, to answer if “the courses offered by these programs vary in their content areas,” these programs did offer a diverse set of courses to strengthen or supplement courses stipulated by MOE and to open some new avenues to knowledge/
dialogues not touched upon by the MOE scheme to highlight their own special purposes and resources. Lastly, to see if “programs’ endeavours to initiate courses vary with institutional characteristics,” it is found that such endeavour did vary with institutional characteristics. While academically-oriented universities did enjoy higher level of autonomy in offering more program-initiated courses than their technological
counterparts, normal universities enjoyed the lowest level of diversity in offering courses among these institutions.
In conclusion, the curriculum model and course structure of secondary school teacher education programs in Taiwan were fairly uniformed and conformed to MOE regulations, and the courses offered tended to concentrate on the MOE core courses.
However, a diverse set of program-initiated courses were provided to supplement areas neglected by the MOE and to strengthen programs’ special needs across six content areas. Thus, it may be concluded that the curriculum of Taiwanese secondary teacher education programs enjoys a certain degree of diversity within a uniformed structure.
7. Discussions
Given the above findings of a curriculum pattern with restricted diversity, it would be important to further explore the historical, political and social contexts underlying the process in which such curriculum pattern is developed. In fact, the development of teacher education in Taiwan has witnessed an ever-present tension between state-controlled uniformity and program-based diversification.