University Governance Reforms and Academic Reflections1
INTRODUCTION
The quest for “world-class universities” and the global university ranking have become increasingly prominent agendas affecting the way universities are governed.
In order to better position universities in the globalized world, many national governments, policy makers, analysts of higher education across different parts of the globe have devoted far more attention, resources and energies to search for new governance and strategies in promoting university research with the intention to rank higher in the global university league tables (Mok and Wei, 2008). Realizing the importance of research and development in the knowledge-based economy, Mohrman, Ma and Baker (2008) have rightly argued that an Emerging Global Model (EGM) is developing in response to the growing pressures for the global competitiveness of universities across the world. As Altbach (2007, 3) has rightly suggested, “research universities have emerged on the policy agenda in many developing countries, especially larger nations that seek to compete Check quote in the global knowledge economy”. This article discusses how the Taiwan government has reformed its higher education governance and management style and what major strategies have been adopted to enhance its higher education’s global competitiveness.
The first part of the article briefly presents a policy context for higher education reforms in Taiwan. The second part examines major reform strategies along the lines of incorporation/corporatization implemented in recent years, as well as discussing major strategies in promoting research excellence adopted by the Taiwan government. The third part presents academics’ critical evaluations and reflections on recent university governance reforms in Taiwan. The final part of the article compares the Taiwan experience with other Asian university systems dealing with similar challenges.
THE QUEST FOR WORLD-CLASS STATUS AND UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE REFORM
Economic, social and political developments in East Asian societies, as in other parts of the globe, have been increasingly influenced by the growing impact of globalization (Mok and James, 2005). No matter how we assess the impact of globalization, no one can deny that globalization is creating new potentials and
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limits in education (Marginson, 1999). Hence modern governments have attempted to look beyond their national boundaries to identify good practices in improving the university governance (Crossley and Watson, 2003). With the strong intention to enhance their national competitiveness in the global market place, governments in different parts of the world have started comprehensive reviews of their higher education systems and made attempts to transform higher education governance and management styles. Realizing that the conventional model of ‘state-oriented’
and ‘highly centralized’ approaches may not be effective enough in governing higher education, many governments have tried to ‘incorporate’ or have introduced
‘corporatization’ and ‘privatization’ measures to run their state/national universities, believing that these transformations will make national universities more flexible and responsive to rapid socio-economic changes (Mok and Oba, 2007).
Intending to create more quality education for their citizens with only limited financial means, a growing number of national governments have started to change their paradigm of governance by adopting the doctrine of monetarism to replace Keynesianism (known as statist options) (Apple, 2000). Instead of being closely directed by the Ministry of Education or equivalent government administrative bodies, state universities in Asia are now required to become more proactive and dynamic in looking for their own financial resources. Like their Australian and British counterparts, universities in Asia are now under constant pressure to become more ‘entrepreneurial’ and to look for alternative funding sources from the market, strengthening their partnerships with industry and business (Mok, 2006; Marginson
& Considine, 2000). In recent years, governments in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Mainland China have started to review their education systems and different reform measures have been introduced to improve the overall education quality in order to enhance their competitiveness in the globalizing economy context (Mok, 2006; Welch, 2007; Morshidi, 2008).
The adoption of corporatization, incorporation and privatization in managing the university sector is part of the reinventing government project, especially when ideas and practices of neo-liberalism are becoming globally influential (Levidow, 2002; Marginson, 1997). Similar to many western countries, public management in many Asian states has been increasingly influenced by the ideas and practices of neo-liberalism, thus private sector management models are introduced to transform the way the public sector is managed and public services are delivered (Cheung, 2008). Trying to embrace the ideas and practices of neo-liberalism, the introduction of market forces and strategies in governing higher education, revitalizing the role of family and individuals and involving the private sector and other non-state actors in education delivery are becoming increasingly popular not only in Taiwan (Mok, 2006a; Tai, 2002; Song and Tai, 2006) but also in other parts of Asia (Mok, 2008;
Morshidi and Abdul, 2008). This article sets out in this wider context of political economy to examine what major strategies that the Taiwan government has adopted in promoting better university governance. Let us now briefly discuss the policy context for higher education reforms in Taiwan.
PROMOTING THE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY IN TAIWAN
THE CONTEXT FOR HIGHER EDUCATION REFORMS IN TAIWAN
Prior to the reforms in the last two decades, Taiwan used to adopt a highly centralized system in governing its higher education system, because education was employed as an instrument to promote the official ideologies and maintain the political influence of the ruling party (Mok, 2000, Mok and Chan, 2008). Realizing the centralized governance model was no longer appropriate in running higher education, especially when the Taiwan society has to confront the increasingly competitive global world, the government in Taiwan has begun to search for new university governance and look for new management strategies to make its higher education system more responsive and efficient in addressing the ever changing world. It is against this context that higher education governance in Taiwan has been going through processes of decentralization, privatization, and corporatization, particularly as the Taiwan government is particularly concerned with how to run its higher education system in a more efficient and effective way (Mok, 2006a, Mok and Chan, 2008).
With a strong conviction to promote her international competitiveness in the knowledge-based economy, the Taiwan government has also adhered to the ideas of neo-liberalism and adopted market-oriented practices and strategies to run its higher education system in a more efficient and effective manner.
In the last few decades, Taiwan has gone through significant changes which resulted from the country’s democratization and economic reforms (Lo and Weng, 2005). In order to position its universities higher in the global university rankings, the government in Taiwan has attempted to assert its international status through introducing different reform strategies to drive universities in Taiwan to perform better in research (Chen and Lo, 2007). Realizing the important role of higher education in enhancing global competitiveness, the Taiwan government has tried to concentrate funding on a selected few universities in order to turn them into leading research / academic institutions which could complete globally (Deem, Mok and Lucas, 2008). Having briefly outlined the context for higher education reforms in Taiwan, let us now focus on the major university reform strategies.
UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE CHANGE AND MANAGEMENT REFORM Since the late 1980s, the number of private higher education institutions in Taiwan had increased tremendously while the number of public institutions grew steadily for the last decade. The official statistics indicate that the private higher education sector has grown sevenfold since the 1950s in Taiwan (MOE, Taiwan, 2001). As stipulated in the Overall Proposal on Education in 1994 and the White Paper for University Education in 2001, the Taiwan government openly recognized the importance of the private sector in providing higher education (Council on Education Reform, Executive Yuan, 1995a; 1995b; MOE, Taiwan, 2001). In 1999, among 88 universities and colleges, 46 were private institutions while 42 were public institutions (Lo and Tai, 2003, Table 8.3). Since then, the provision of the private sector has exceeded that
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of the public sector in higher education. The significant increase in private higher education in Taiwan clearly shows that the changing role of the Taiwanese state has transformed from a higher education ‘provider’ to become a ‘facilitator’ (Lo and Tai, 2003). Other than provision, the private sector has also expanded its role in university administration and curriculum design. For university administration, the Private Education Institutes Law and Implementation Plan of Cooperation between Social Organizations and Educational Institutes have granted autonomy to private institutions, particularly in school management, by strengthening the role and authority of the directors’ board. For curriculum design, the participation of the private sector exists in the form of cooperation between the academia and the industry. Given the growing globalization impact, Taiwan has been aware of the importance of maintaining an adequate supply of quality manpower in the knowledge-based economy era; the Taiwan government has therefore tried various ways to strengthen the links between university education and the labour market (MOE, Taiwan, 2003a). To assure that university graduates meet market needs, the MOE encourages higher education institutions to foster closer connections with industry. With the same scheme in place, the employers have the opportunities to engage with academics from universities in the design of curricula and courses in order to assure that what the students learn would cater for the labour market needs (Lu, 2004, 6-7).
Prior to 1994, the government was the primary funding source of all national universities. Similar to China, the Taiwan government also tried to diversify financing channels to finance its higher education system by replacing the Public Budget System with the new University Fund System. Under the new system, the national universities are allowed to keep surpluses, hence giving the incentives for the universities to diversify their sources of income through actively applying research grants. Furthermore, the MOE allows 30 per cent of flexibility on public universities’ tuition charges. With the introduction of these measures, the Taiwan government hopes to make the national universities more financially independent in a longer term. Nowadays, tuition fees and research grants have contributed a more significant proportion to the national universities’ revenue than in the past. In addition, the government once attempted to turn the status of all national universities into ‘administrative legal bodies’ by introducing university incorporation plans with intention to give national universities a high degree of flexibility and autonomy in their operation and development through empowering them to enjoy more fiscal autonomy and flexibilities in generating revenues (MOE, Taiwan, 2001; 2003b;
Lo and Tai, 2003). However, such an attempt has encountered difficulty and now the Taiwan government has tried to find ways to enhance institutional autonomy of universities.
To encourage private universities to compete with national universities on the same ground, the Taiwan government has adopted a new funding policy in the higher education sector by cutting about 20 to 25 per cent of the state financial resources originally attributed to national universities to offer financial support to private
PROMOTING THE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY IN TAIWAN
universities based upon a merit and competitive basis. In line of this policy, 20 per cent of the regular income of the private universities has been supported by the MOE since the 1999-2000 academic year (MOE, Taiwan, 2001). The implementation of this funding policy has held private universities accountable to the Ministry of Education and the general public would expect more from private universities and for them to perform better when public money is used to support their activities (Lo and Tai, 2003, 147). In addition, the government also slightly loosened the restrictions on tuition fees by adopting the ‘user-pay’ principle in order to facilitate universities to get additional revenues to finance their academic programmes and research initiatives (Mok and Lo, 2002). All these measures aim to correct the previous imbalance of funding and promote a competitive culture between public and private higher education institutions for fostering better performance.
In the last few years, public universities in Taiwan have been experiencing significant governance and management changes. In line with the spirit and practices of corporatization and incorporation, the universities and colleges have been granted more autonomy by releasing certain legal restrictions on university governance. The revision of the University Law in 2005 is a good example of the deregulation in higher education governance. Regarding personnel management, the appointment of university presidents had to go through two stages (one university level; one MOE level) in the past. Nonetheless, the newly revised University Law stipulates that presidents of national universities are appointed by a selection committee which consists of members from the universities, external parties and officials of MOE (Article 8), indicating a simplification of the appointment procedures. In addition, the restrictions on the nationality have been removed. Notionally, universities are allowed to appoint overseas scholars to be presidents and other senior positions are allowed to be filled by top talents through worldwide search (see Article 8 and 13).
In short, such a legal amendment has facilitated universities in recruiting academic leaders through world-wide search.
Furthermore, universities are given more autonomy in finance. Currently, terms and conditions of university staff are standardized. According to Article 19 of the University Law, ‘universities may add rights and obligations of teachers in the academic rules and formulate separate stipulations for the suspension or refusal of reengagement of teachers upon requirements of academic research and development, which shall be implemented and provided in the contracts after being approved by the academic affairs meeting’. This means that universities have more flexibility to adjust the terms and conditions, and therefore the structure of the salary of university staff can become more flexible and performance-based in the future. In other words, universities can use the salary adjustment as a way to reward or punish the staff.
The revised University Law also allows universities to develop a more flexible organizational structure. Article 6, for example, allows universities to establish inter-institutional systems and research centres. It authorizes the universities themselves to set the regulations on the organization and operation of the inter-institutional institutes. Moreover, Article 11 provides universities with the autonomy to establish
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their colleges or independent graduate schools, while colleges can establish their departments or graduate schools. Universities are also authorized to offer inter-department, inter-institute or inter-institutional qualifications. All these measures show an important step towards university autonomy as well as inter-institutional collaboration and integration. Putting the above changes into perspective, we can see that the revised University Law has indeed changed the university governance from a ‘centralized’ to a more ‘decentralized’ and ‘corporate’ model in Taiwan.
MAJOR STRATEGIES PROMOTING ‘WORLD-CLASS UNIVERSITY’
In addition to university governance reform and management changes discussed above, the Taiwan government has realized that globalization has intensified the competition among higher education institutions in a worldwide sense. After a careful assessment, the Taiwan government recognizes that overseas competition, especially competition from mainland China, would become a major challenge to Taiwan’s universities because of the technological advancement and rapid flow of human capital in the global age (Huang, 2001, 171-73; Lu, 2002). After Taiwan’s accession to the World Trade Organization, overseas universities are allowed to expand their recruitment of Taiwan’s students through educational agencies, distance learning, and two track or dual-credit systems. In order to enhance the global competitiveness of universities in Taiwan against the highly competitive world, the Taiwan government began to call for the pursuit of academic excellence of universities in the late 1990s (Lo and Weng, 2005).
In order to enhance the global ranking of universities in Taiwan, the Taiwan government has set a target in 2004 to have at least one local university be ranked among the top 100 universities within the next decade, and at least 15 key departments or cross-university research centers will become the top in Asia within the next five years (Lu, 2004: 9). Intending to improve the quality of university standards, pursuing academic excellence and focusing universities’ efforts on developing a selected few areas has become the policy adopted by the government to boost the research profile of universities in Taiwan. In 1998, the MOE and the National Science Council (NSC) jointly launched the Program for Promoting Academic Excellence of Universities (Academic Excellence Program), which primarily aims at improving universities’ infrastructure and invigorating research (MOE, Taiwan, 2000). This Program supports four research fields, including humanities and social sciences, life sciences, natural sciences, and engineering and applied sciences. Each research field has a focus of investigation:
1. For humanities and social sciences, the Academic Excellence Program requests research projects to utilize local research materials for arguing against or elaborating theories from the West;
2. For life sciences, the Academic Excellence Program stresses the importance of human physiology and development of biotechnology;
PROMOTING THE GLOBAL UNIVERSITY IN TAIWAN
3. For natural sciences, the Academic Excellence Program focuses on atmospheric sciences, materials sciences and earth sciences and expects these disciplines to be recognized internationally as of leading status;
4. For engineering and applied sciences, the Academic Excellence Program highlights the importance of the applied studies of networking technologies, wireless communication technologies and optics and photonics (MOE, Taiwan, 2000).
In addition, the MOE and NSC also formed a panel, consisting of eminent local and overseas academics, charged with selecting research projects for support by the program. In the first round of the Academic Excellence Program, a total of 261 research project applications were submitted. After rigorous review, a total amount of NT$ 4.3 billion were allocated to fund 19 projects, three of which were offered conditionally. The first round of the Program was completed in 2004. To further develop a high quality research culture in Taiwan, the second round of the Program was launched in 2000 until 2006. There were 148 research project applications in this round and twelve projects were granted with a total amount of NT$ 2.1 billion. With a rigorous selection process in place, only 6.1 percent of research project applications were selected to be supported in the first round of the program (excluding the three conditional offers), while 8 percent of applications were funded in the second round. The funded rate of humanities and social sciences projects was even lower (3.2 percent for the second round). Most of the funding went to public institutions, while only two research projects jointly submitted by public and private institutions were funded (MOE, Taiwan, 2003a). After reviewing the various rounds of implementation, the government considers the Academic Excellence Program successful in allowing effective integration of resources to foster cooperation and exchange between outstanding institutions and talented researchers, and boosting research capacity (NSC, 2005). Hence, the Taiwan government has become even more committed to investing in key research areas in order to better place universities of Taiwan in the global map.
In addition to the Academic Excellence Program discussed above, another initiative entitled the Program for Improving University Fundamental Education (Fundamental Education Program) under the Academic Excellence Program was implemented in 2001 to enhance the level of university’s foundation and general studies (Lu, 2004, 8). Applications for this program would be divided into five groups, namely, humanities and social sciences, life sciences, natural sciences, engineering and applied sciences. In the first round of the Fundamental Education Program, 112 institutions submitted 432 applications, of which 192 projects from 92 institutions were selected to be funded. In terms of funding, 55.9 per cent of the fund was granted to public institutions, while 44.1 per cent of the fund was allocated
In addition to the Academic Excellence Program discussed above, another initiative entitled the Program for Improving University Fundamental Education (Fundamental Education Program) under the Academic Excellence Program was implemented in 2001 to enhance the level of university’s foundation and general studies (Lu, 2004, 8). Applications for this program would be divided into five groups, namely, humanities and social sciences, life sciences, natural sciences, engineering and applied sciences. In the first round of the Fundamental Education Program, 112 institutions submitted 432 applications, of which 192 projects from 92 institutions were selected to be funded. In terms of funding, 55.9 per cent of the fund was granted to public institutions, while 44.1 per cent of the fund was allocated