President Ma Ying-jeou met on the morning of December 13 with international scholars who were in Taiwan to attend the 2012 Higher Education Forum, which was being held by the University System of Taiwan. Besides welcoming the visitors to Taiwan to share their practical experience in working to bolster university administration, the president also expressed his hopes that they will provide their valuable suggestions on the future direction of higher education governance here. This, he said, will enable the talent cultivated at universities to better meet the needs of society.
In remarks, the president noted that many nations have changed and enhanced their models for university management in light of increasing international competition in the higher education sector. Taiwan, he pointed out, is also adopting new approaches to introduce professional management systems for university governance. Many countries throughout the world are granting universities greater autonomy in the conferral of degrees, organizational adjustments, the employment of personnel, and the management of financial and accounting matters, thereby effectively promoting the independence of universities. Taiwan also intends to move in this direction to improve higher education, the president remarked.
President Ma noted that over the past five years, the Ministry of Education has actively promoted the Aim for the Top University Project. Under this initiative, NT$10 billion in financial assistance is provided each year to local universities to be used for teaching, research, and talent cultivation in an effort to keep pace with the world's top universities. The president said that concrete results have been achieved. However, some in the academic community feel that this policy overemphasizes academic research and the publishing of papers at the expense of teaching and making a contribution to society. President Ma acknowledged that opinions both for and against this initiative are frequently heard on university campuses.
President Ma furthermore stated that Taiwan's universities can be divided into general and technology-oriented universities. Some professors at technology universities feel that Taiwan places too much importance on the publishing of academic theses, and therefore many schools do not provide sufficient practical training to students, and graduates in some cases are thus unable to fully meet the needs of employers, he noted. Universities are designed to cultivate outstanding talent that can make contributions to the nation, the president added, saying that the Aim for the Top University Project should not be limited to technological R&D, but should also strengthen students' background in the humanities. This, he said, will help to better cultivate people with technical expertise who are also well-rounded human beings.
The president also mentioned that this year's university acceptance rate reached 88%. If students taking the university entrance exam for a second time were not included, the acceptance ratio would have been 100%, which has caused difficulties for some schools in their management and operation. The government at present is actively promoting a policy of campus internationalization with the hope of opening Taiwan's doors to even more students from mainland China and Southeast Asian nations, he remarked.
National University of Singapore President Tan Chorh Chuan (陳祝全) and City University of Hong Kong President Way Kuo (郭位) were among those escorted to the Presidential Office by Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) and University System of Taiwan Chancellor Ovid J. L. Tseng (曾志朗) to meet President Ma. Also attending the meeting was National Security Council Advisor Francis Yi-Hua Kan (甘逸驊).