Sixty-eight year-old Ling Tung University lecturer Dr. Frank Tien-jin Chang has spent more than 50 years in Taiwan's technical and vocational education system and colleagues have dubbed him the "locomotive of votech education."

His academic background is grounded in machinery design processing and mold/die casting processing, but he also excels at management and administration and has published a book examining technical and vocation education in the 21st century.

He helped found National Hai-san Industrial Vocational High School and Yunlin Provincial Industrial Junior College (now National Formosa University). Taipei Provincial Industrial Vocational Junior College was also reorganized, first as National Taipei Institute of Technology and later as National Taipei University of Technology, under Chang's tutelage. In recent years his assistance has been sought out by a number of mainland Chinese technical and vocational schools seeking to upgrade their own curricula.

From the perspective of a serious long-term observer of the technical/vocational school system, Chang now believes that the system has lost a clear direction and has suffered from a lack of resources over the past few years.

Where does he see the future of technical/vocational education heading? How can technical/vocational students once again come to play the core role in industry?

The following are excerpts of a CommonWealth Magazine interview with Dr. Chang: 

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I'm a graduate of Chiayi Industrial Vocational High School's Machinery Design Processing Department and have spent my entire life within the technical/vocation education system.

At the height of Taiwan's technical/vocational education system in the early 80s, 70 percent of junior high school graduates would go on to vocational education. Recently, I've had the feeling that the technical/vocational educational system isn't really in decline. It's still growing. It's just that there have been some setbacks. This is particularly evident in the intermediate phases of the system, such as vocational high schools, where funding and resources have become increasingly scarce.

Some people are currently emphasizing the view of vocational high schools as terminal education institutions, but I've seen a number of these schools, and the equipment and facilities for vocational students has fallen behind and is really outdated. We're not going the last mile and some schools are even using equipment that is 20 or 30 years old. Some schools spend less than NT$100,000 a year on library funding. It's pathetic.

The degree of relevance with which the government views vocational education is a far cry from that of higher education.

Another problem I've noticed is the decrease in the number of researchers being cultivated in our universities relative to the past. Instead, they are now shifting toward cultivating specialists and professionals geared toward a specific area of employment. Meanwhile, the technical/vocational education system is shifting more toward a general university curriculum. Society is, of course, changing, and so must education with it. But not every school can move in this direction.

For example, the technical/vocational system is supposed to emphasize hands-on, practical capabilities. But now faculty advancement and school evaluations are increasingly similar to ordinary universities, with the result being that the overall direction of education is being unduly influenced by these evaluations. And that direction must be modified.

There are now a lot of vocational high school principals whose primary means of performance evaluation is the ratio of graduates their school sends off into the national university system, but that is actually just one part of the whole picture. Another important measure of performance should emphasize the students' ability to meet and understand licensing requirements, and acquire work ethics, communication abilities and a spirit of teamwork.

"Proper attitude, capability and practicality" are the core of the technical/vocational system, differentiating it from your average university. Administrators and faculty must ensure that this element is taught, because if it is overlooked, then the core values of the technical/vocational system are simply lost.

Upgrading through Focus on Unique Merits

In 1994 when I was principal of Taipei Industrial Vocational Junior College, I presided over the reorganization of the school as the nation's first institute of technology.

We proceeded then with great caution. A lot of those involved in technical/vocational education believed their schools needed a leader, and they didn't want Taipei Industrial Vocational Junior College to change. From the time the school board proposed the reorganization plan, it took more than ten years before its completion.

I believe that a school that's doing a good job shouldn't stop there. We have quality students and qualified faculty. And the country furthermore needs a well-trained workforce, the kind of workforce that can also spur the development of the vocational/technical education system. We should provide the vocational/technical school system with a conduit for further advancement. We can't ask it to be forever frozen in its current tracks. Vocational high schools have to upgrade and no longer simply be a final educational stop but rather a single step in an ongoing process.

Upgrading should mean an upgrade in content.

Each university must find its own niche. Students come from varying backgrounds and the expertise of faculty is equally varied. After the current reorganization, some schools will hire a lot of doctoral students fresh out of ordinary universities. The backgrounds of these faculty members will be largely theoretical, so when they teach students in the technical/vocational system, there will be a gap in their practical abilities. This is a problem that must be quickly addressed.

A Drain of Mid-level Technical Personnel

Taiwan's advantage in the past lay in the expertise of its technical personnel, and we may have been slowly losing that edge.

Thirty years ago the U.S. company DuPont was impressed by Taiwan's technical expertise and decided to set up molding and casting operations in Neili, Taoyuan County. The American engineer in charge of the plant there had been a student at the University of Pennsylvania around the time I attended. On a tour of the plant he told me that DuPont had brought Japanese molding and die casting equipment to Taiwan for manufacture and sale back in the Japanese market, where one such unit would sell for as much as a Mercedes Benz sedan.

In today's Taiwan, like in other high-tech nations, the structure of the technical workforce is moving from a pyramid structure to more of a lantern shaped structure, where fewer unskilled workers are needed at the bottom, while increasing numbers of middle and high-end workers, such as technicians and engineers, are required. Taiwan, however, is experiencing a drain of mid-level technical personnel.

With a de-emphasis on technical education, there will be a drain of such personnel, and there will be no one to fill these jobs, which will have an impact on business development.

Technical/vocational education must place greater emphasis on actual manufacturing technology and expertise. By studying both practical and theoretical applications, the theoretical becomes more substantive and of more practical use.

The ability for practical application is extremely important for a student's future development, because they can only understand the actual circumstances when they are on-site, understand what sorts of capabilities are required for a certain job and can then have a better idea of where their substantive goals for further education lie.

Technical/vocational education is an investment in the nation and is an investment endeavor on which a nation must place great emphasis. 

Translated from the Chinese by Brian Kennedy

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Chinese Version: 台灣需要中階技術人力