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Administrative Framework
Education in Taiwan is centrally managed. The Ministry of Education
教育部 sets national education policy and directly oversees departments
and bureaus of education at the municipal and local levels. In addition
to several supportive administration departments, the Ministry of
Education has departments of higher education 高等教育司, technological
and vocational education 技術及職業教育司, secondary education 中等教育司, elementary
and junior high school education 國民教育司, social education 社會教育司,
and physical education 體育司; bureaus of international cultural and
educational relations 國際文教處 and of student military training 學生軍訓處;
divisions of environmental protection 環境保護小組, mainland affairs 大陸事務工作小組,
and special education 特殊教育工作小組; a science & technology advisory
office 顧問室; as well as committees or councils on academics 學術審議委員會,
school discipline and moral education 訓育委員會, medical education 醫學教育委員會,
overseas Chinese education 僑民教育委員會, educational research 教育研究委員會,
Central Grievance Committee for Teachers 中央教師申訴評議委員會, and Mandarin
promotion 國語推行委員會. Other affiliated social educational institutions
include libraries, museums, concert halls, theaters, and an acting
troupe. The MOE also has 22 overseas offices to assist ROC students
studying abroad and to promote educational and academic exchanges
with other countries.
After the streamlining of the Taiwan Provincial Government, the
provincial Department of Education has been restructured as part
of the Central Regional Office 中部辦公室. Each municipal government
also has a bureau of education 教育局, and county or city governments
have education bureaus or sections 教育局. |
Education is strongly emphasized in the Republic of China, as it has been throughout
Chinese history. Even the ROC Constitution requires an allocation of the national
budget for educational purposes (Article 164). Over the last decade, the ROC's
educational development focused on higher education. Some 22.86 percent of the
education budget was allocated for 994,283 students (18.97 percent of the total
student population) in the higher education system, whereas 39.76 percent was
spent on the 2,884,388 elementary and junior high students (55.03 percent of
the total student population) in the compulsory education system for the 1999
fiscal year. This uneven distribution caused the government to shift its focus
and place greater emphasis on improving the quality of compulsory education.
Civic educational organizations also advocated new legislation to remove the
minimum requirement of the educational budget while still allocating a reasonable
budget for educational purposes. In July 1997, the second session of the Third
National Assembly passed a provision to Paragraph 10, Article 10, of the Additional
Articles of the Constitution of the Republic of China (for a complete version
of the ROC Constitution, see Appendix II) that states: "Priority shall be given
to funding for education, science, and culture, and in particular funding for
compulsory education, the restrictions in Article 164 of the Constitution notwithstanding." Therefore,
although this provision gives compulsory education higher priority funding within
the education budget, it also removes the minimum expenditure requirements for
different levels of the government as required in Article 164 of the ROC Constitution.
Thus, after the implementation of the Additional Articles, the government
was given more freedom to allocate budget resources for different government
functions, improving past budget allocation problems a lot in the 2000 fiscal
year. That year, some 24.32 percent of the education budget was allocated for
1,092,102 students (20.59 percent of the total student population) in the higher
education system, while 51.32 percent was spent on 2,855,515 (53.85 percent
of the total student population) students in the compulsory education system.
The draft Law of Educational Budget Allocation and Management 教育經費編列與管理法
passed the Legislative Yuan on November 28, 2000. Beginning in 2002, the educational
budget shall not be less than 21.5 percent of the average of the three previous
years.
For fiscal 2000, government spending for education exceeded US$17.1 billion,
or about 5.5 percent of the GNP, with 4.13 percent for public schools and 1.37
percent for private ones. (The figures stated here are based on an exchange
rate of one US dollar to 31.23 New Taiwan dollars.)
Nine years of education has been compulsory since 1968, and there is a wide
range of other educational options for citizens of all ages. From August 1,
2000, to July 31, 2001, (hereafter, SY2000), some 99.94 percent of all elementary
school-age children (age six to 11) were in school. The total enrollment rate
of the population aged between six and 21 was 90.77 percent, and about 24 percent
of the total population was attending an educational institution of some type--roughly
238.05 persons for every one thousand. In SY2000, there were 8,071 registered
schools, with an average of 35.42 students per class and a student to teacher
ratio of 19.74 to 1. As of the end of 2000, the national illiteracy rate stood
at 4.45 percent. The rate continues to decrease as the enrollment rate for school-age
children remains high while the number of the illiterate old generation is withering
year by year.
Even though a larger proportion of the population now receives higher education,
the education system in general has been criticized for its inflexibility and
failure to address the needs of Taiwan's rapidly changing society. As a result,
educational reform has become a major theme and, in the last few years, measures
have been adopted to solve problems in different areas of the educational system.
Measures have focused on establishing a more comprehensive compulsory education
system; creating a more universal preschool education system; improving the
higher education system; diversifying and refining the vocational education
system; setting up a system of life-long learning and information education;
and adding additional channels for continued study, new student counseling systems,
and programs for fostering pedagogic talents and on-the-job training. Furthermore,
family education, aboriginal education, special education, and budget allocation
and research are being emphasized. These measures will be discussed in the following
sections.
Educational Tracks in the ROC 
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