CHAPTER V. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Taiwan is transforming the position from education importing country to
education exporting country after joining WTO. For the reasons that Vietnam is stable and friendly, there are many Taiwanese businessmen’s children in Vietnam, Vietnam is developing its industry now and a comprehensive technologic and vocational education for fostering workforce is needed, and the similarity between Taiwan and Vietnam in culture facilitates the integration, Taiwan-Vietnam international
cooperation of technological and vocational education is one of the major educational policy in Taiwan now. The first purpose of this study is to find the critical issues in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education by using Modified-Delphi technique. The second purpose of this study is to seek for the solutions for the critical issues by interviewing with officers both in Taiwan and Vietnam.
The instrument in the study is self-designed questionnaire evaluating by instrument validation panel before sending to the Delphi panel. The Delphi panelists were selected by simple criterion-based selection and network criterion-based selection methods, and there are 15 experts in the areas of principals, chiefs of international offices, and professors in University of technology or Institute of technology, having experience before or involving in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education now. The panelists were asked to rate a set of issues, which were drawn from current literature and organized under four categories. The four categories are “Fund”, “Verification and recognition of mutual qualifications”, “Related regulations and laws”, and “Support from Administration”. The questionnaire contains 30 items that had been identified as
critical issues impact on Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education. The Priority Importance Scale used for rating the critical issues was five-point scale, referring to 1= very low potential for dealing with the issue to 5= very high potential for dealing with the issue.
The results were analyzed in terms of the styles of the data in quantitative and qualitative way. SPSS for Windows (10.0) was utilized to be the instrument of statistical data analysis with Mean which represents central tendency and SD which represents dispersion. The table “The Contrast with Interval of Judgment and Relative Importance” was used to tell the relative importance in the study, and SD was assisted to tell the order if Means are the same between two items. The foumula “SD< 1/3 Mean” was utilized to understand the convergent situation, and the round of Delphi questionnaire stopped in the third one, because all items were convergent. As for qualitative analysis, content analytic method was used to analyze opinion and suggestions that panelists wrote down on the open-ended questions. The similar opinion was revised and added “◎” in front of the items that were revised in phrase;
the different and useful opinion was incorporated into the next round questionnaire and added “※” in front of the items that were new. One item was revised and four new items were added finally. Five critical issues were determined by First Quartile, and were taken into the procedure of interview with Dr. Yin and Dr. Nguyen to seek for the solutions.
Conclusions
According to the result of Modified-Delphi technique and interview, the study addressed conclusion as follows.
1. There are five most critical issues currently impacting on Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education
In this study, five critical issues are generated by Modified-Delphi technique.
They are “Taiwan and Vietnam should have a set of contrast and comparison mechanisms of educational systems to deal with the problems of
Taiwan-Vietnam-educational- system integration”, “Suggest that the verification rules of credits and educational qualifications should have unified standard”,
“Taiwan and Vietnam should cooperate to set up an overseas training platform to foster the necessary human resources for Taiwanese businessmen”, “Vietnamese government should aris Mandrine training classes to enhance Vietnamese
students’ Mandrine ability before they come to study in Taiwan” and “Vietnamese government should offer scholarships to enable Vietnamese teachers or students to recieve short-term training in Taiwan”. Three of the critical issues regard affairs of Taiwan, and two of them regard to Vietnam.
2. Three solutions were explored by interviewed with section chief in Department of TVE, Dr. Yin
In terms of the top five critical issues, Ministry of Education in Taiwan is
undertaking to solve the issue, “Taiwan and Vietnam should have a set of contrast and comparison mechanisms of educational systems to deal with the problems of Taiwan-Vietnam-educational- system integration” with planning of relevant regulations. As for the issue “Suggest that the verification rules of credits and educational qualifications should have unified standard”, two regulations have been enacted by MOE for TVE schools to follow. Furthermore, the issue “Taiwan and Vietnam should cooperate to set up an overseas training platform to foster the necessary human resources for Taiwanese businessmen” is in instant for both sides to cooperate to solve.
3. Adopting Modified-Delphi technique to construct critical issues can collect different opinion and establish consensus
It is because that the study is regarding to cross-culture issue, having high controversy, so the process of group decision-making to establish consensus is needed. The Delphi method is a means of structuring a group communication processes so that a group of experts can gather information or forecast future problems effectively (Linstone & Turoff, 1975). Therefore, it is appropriate to obtain the top five critical issues in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education with Delphi-technique.
4. The finding of critical issues can help understand the problem of Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education
Policy issues are the result of prior disputes about the definition, classification, explanation, and evaluation of a problem (Dunn, 1981). In the formative stage of issue, the researcher reviewed related literature to find the problem addressing by the professors first. These problems were arranged to be the issues and developed to be the items in Delphi questionnaire. Issues are the continuation of problems and integration of definition, classification, explanation and evaluation of that.
For the reason by analogy, finding the top five critical issues can also discover the most serious problems in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of
technological and vocational education.
Recommendations
For technological and vocational education in Taiwan
- Although educational policy trends to relax now, a set of unified standards to be followed is necessary
According to the results of three rounds of Delphi questionnaires, the issue
“Taiwan and Vietnam should have a set of contrast and comparison mechanisms of educational systems to deal with the problems of Taiwan-Vietnam-educational-
system integration”, and the issue “Suggest that the verification rules of credits and educational qualifications should have unified standard” are always ahead of other items in category 2. It shows that at the aspect of Verification &
Recognition of Vietnamese Educational Qualifications, a set of unified standards that can be obeyed by TVE schools is important. Although TVE schools have absolute decision-making power to verify and recognize educational qualification, but they still hope the concrete regulations to be followed and it also can facilitate Vietnamese students.
For technical and vocational education in Vietnam
- Vietnamese government should take responsibility to prepare their students and teachers
Among the top five critical issues, three of them regard to the scope of business of Taiwan, but two of them regard to Vietnam. It shows that in professors’ mind, they think that the responsibility of Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education is half to Taiwan, but half to Vietnam. In the past, Vietnamese government was usually in a disadvantaged position and relied on Taiwan. However, the professors in Taiwanese TVE schools think it is necessary for Vietnamese government to have their own power to prepare their students like arising Mandarin training classes to enhance their ability of foreign language and communication. Otherwise, Vietnamese government should have budget to offer scholarship to enable Vietnamese teachers or students to attend short-term training in Taiwan. The efforts both from Taiwan and Vietnam facilitate the promotion of Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education.
For international cooperation of Taiwan and Vietnam
- Taiwan and Vietnam need a communication mechanism
According to the results of three rounds of Delphi questionnaire, the issue
“Taiwan and Vietnam should cooperate to set up an overseas training platform to foster the necessary human resources for Taiwanese businessmen” always was ordered in the first. It shows that the bridge for mutual TVE schools and Taiwanese businessmen is not complete now, so it is urgent to set up a
mechanism for communication between them. By means of the communication mechanism, TVE schools in Taiwan can understand which subjects to fit with the demand of workforce in Vietnam and the demand of human resource of
Taiwanese businessmen.
For future study
- Design of the study can try other research methods.
The study used Modified-Delphi technique because the samples are not many, so quantitative research method that needs a large number of samples can not be allowed. Cohering the consensus of the experts’ opinions to critical issues with Modified-Delphi technique is a feasible way, however, because the study is a kind of explorative study, it is also worth to be tried with in-depth interview, conference or focus group to understand deeply with the problem that are
currently impacting in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education by interviewing with policy stakeholders in Taiwan and Vietnam directly.
- The attribution of Delphi panel can be diverse.
The study just focuses on the opinion of 15 professors in Taiwanese TVE schools.
The future study can add more diverse elements into Delphi panel, such as ministers, officers in MOE in Taiwan or in MOET in Vietnam, Taiwanese
businessmen in Vietnam, and Vietnamese students in Taiwan and so on. The more diverse the Delphi panel is, the more practical the study is.
- Should try to explore other issues that are not listed in the study.
The study explores the critical issues in four categories, but there are still many other issues not belong to these four categories. Therefore, finding out other issues by literature review or interviewing with policy stakeholders is necessary, because these other issues may play important rules to Taiwan-Vietnam
international cooperation of technological and vocational education.
- To draw up solution programs to contribute to TVE in Taiwan and Vietnam.
Critical issues only point out the problems in Taiwan-Vietnam international cooperation of technological and vocational education, but planning of solution program can really feedback to policy stakeholders and offer suggestions to Ministry of Education. As planning the solution program, some elements should be considered such as the problem, legitimacy, target persons, time, and the place, facilitates and so on.
