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Posted by lakatos
at September 17,2008 16:52
Our tech and vocation education is plagued by two problems. The first one is rigidity of tech/voc schools at the level of secondary education. With few exceptions, most of the Commercial and Industrial Professional schools in Taiwan have not radically changed their program offerings for a very long time. For example, Daan Commercial and Industrial Professional School in Taipei pretty much build around the same set of departments it had 20 years ago. There are indeed some modernizations (they must have). However, if the mission of a tech/voc school is to develop students' competences in manual or practical activities, shouldn't they change their program offerings to reflect the current needs for manual or practical skills in the job market? Is the need for engineering drawing that much stronger than funeral directors?
The second problem is the lack of differentiation in the local higher education market. The Tech/Voc colleges and universities in Taiwan share similar aspirations to the polytechnic schools in the 19th century. Educators back then were aspired to bring scientific knowledge to application. These schools (e.g. Ecole Poly, RPI) eventually become the pioneers of modern engineering education in higher edu institutions around the world. Building on the Polytechnic model, some universities blended applied science education and research together to create modern research universities. At the level of higher education, the objective of education is not simply to teach students to operate machines. We expect students to develop competences in problem solving during their stay in college. Although I don’t think there is much room for differentiation in basic science and math trainings, tech/voc universities should help their students connect to the job market by emphasizing on-site learning or learning-by-doing. Here is the tricky part: Comprehensive universities like NTU or NSYSU also embrace these ideas. Tech/Voc schools such as NTUST really need to move faster and do much better than the comprehensive universities in learning-by-doing to remain competitive and relevant in the higher education market.
The demand for the old skills is disappearing while the suppliers continue to provide the same decade-old products. No wonder the tech/voc education is in trouble.
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Posted by El Keridge
at September 22,2008 11:30
El Keridge,
I totally agree with you.
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Posted by lakatos
at September 22,2008 15:41
