Educational improvement to whose images? – A coloniality perspective of higher education policy in Taiwan

Introduction

The development of higher education has been greatly influenced by the prevailing trend of neoliberal internationalization in Taiwan recently. Notably, with the transformation of higher education policies as well as the reformed school management strategies that are commonly modeled on the top-ranked higher education institutions (HEIs) in Western countries (e.g., the U.S., the U.K., etc.), the unexpected consequences, and the related debates have emerged during the past decades in Taiwan.

Taiwan is a small island economy in East Asia. Along with the entrenched neoliberal ideology among the globalized higher education contexts, the popularity of the global university rankings (GURs) has received increased attention and interest from governments and HEIs worldwide (Pusser & Marginson, 2013; Stack, 2016). Taiwan is not an exception to such worldwide ranking games. Improving the rankings performance of universities has been widely regarded as imperative in the agenda and aspirations for internationalization of higher education (IHE) policies in Taiwan. Notably, with the reduction of the higher education budget and governmental funding, many HEIs are eager to achieve better performance on the GURs to not only compete for governmental merit-based research grants but also improve their reputation and global visibility to attract international students and faculty members from higher-ranked overseas institutions. Against this background, the rationale of higher education policies in Taiwan is mainly driven by a neoliberal-instrumental discourse, which is comprised of market-based and competition-based values (Khorsandi Taskoh, 2014).

GURs have played an influential role in constructing the reputation and educational quality of HEIs in Taiwan. Notably, the annually released ranking league tables of the Big Three rankings ¹ have commonly been considered influential external validators that represent the perceived prestige and quality of HEIs. However, some critical voices raise concerns that the rankings are epistemic tools that embody the influence of a Western-dominated global imaginary of higher education by legitimizing the privileged status of the higher-ranked Global North institutions, particularly the English-speaking, wealthy, and White-dominated institutions (Ishikawa, 2014; Rhoades et al., 2019; Stack, 2016; Stein & de Oliveira Andreotti, 2017). In other words, university rankings are seen to represent the dominance of the Western model of the knowledge economy as well as the outcome of neoliberal internationalization in the contemporary global context (Ishikawa, 2014; Trahar, 2013).

Moreover, the internationalization level of institutions has become an indicator of success in GURs systems. For instance, the rankings criteria of the influential Big Three rankings are widely associated with internationalization, such as international research collaboration, a ratio of international students and faculty members, student mobility, and international research influence and reputation survey (Larsen, 2016; Stack, 2016). Given these “international” indicators, the higher-ranking institutions seem to be more likely to achieve and retain a higher level of institutional internationalization as compared to their lower-ranking counterparts. For one thing, existing studies have demonstrated the influence of university rankings on international students’ decision-making in school choice (Broecke, 2015; Cebolla-Boado & Soysal, 2018; Tan & Goh, 2014). The top-ranked institutions are more attractive to international students and therefore continue to maintain or improve the ratio and numbers of international students. For another, given the ranking performance of universities is considered a crucial criterion for competing for governmental funding and research grants in Taiwan, higher-ranking institutions are more competitive in receiving funding for conducting high-quality international research projects and attracting distinguished international scholars and faculty members (Chou & Chan, 2016, 2017; Lo, 2014). Consequently, it seems to be a ranking vicious circle for lower-ranked institutions to break the deadlock, which is the commonplace narrative of many Taiwanese universities nowadays (Chou, 2014; Chou & Chan, 2016, 2017; Lo, 2014).

How the educational improvement represented to be in policy? – the Higher Education Sprout Project

The Higher Education Sprout Project (HESP) is one of the significant higher education policies that has been implemented since 2018. The term “sprout” stands for “sustained progress and rise of universities in Taiwan,” (MOE, 2018) which also indicated the goals of the policy. The HESP has two primary parts of practice to improve the overall quality of higher education in Taiwan. The first part of the policy agenda focuses on the improvement of equality in higher education. There are three dimensions of educational improvement represented in the first part of the policy agenda. First, there is a need to create a stronger connection between universities and local communities to support regional economic growth and sustainability. Second, there is a need to develop innovative student-centred teaching models and develop the university’s featured disciplines to increase research productivity and capacity. Finally, there is a need to provide educational resources to support minority and disadvantaged students to access higher education and improve equality. To meet these goals, with a five-year evaluation cycle, the government is providing $11.37 billion New Taiwanese Dollars (NTD) in subsidies to eligible colleges and universities. The eligibility criteria for the subsidy are based on academic performance (i.e., research productivity), and number of students and faculty members at the institution. During the first evaluation cycle (i.e., 2018–2022), 33 public universities, 15 public colleges, and polytechnic universities, 37 private universities, and 65 private colleges and polytechnic universities are eligible for the subsidy (MOE, 2018, February 13). However, the gap in subsidies is very significant between institutions. For example, the top five subsidized public universities received more than $6.5 billion new Taiwan dollars (NTD) (more than 70% of the funds), yet the remaining hundreds of institutions are allocated less than 30% of the total funds (MOE, 2018, February 13).

The HESP noted that the competitive funding provided by previous policies has limited the number of institutions subsidized by the government and narrowed the space for the development of private universities and junior colleges. Considering that the limited government funding has resulted in aggressive competition between institutions and between faculty members, the HESP has enlarged the sponsorship scale and shed light on multi-faceted issues, including equality, teaching and learning innovation, social responsibility, resource configuration, accessibility, and international competitiveness of Taiwanese HEIs. In this case, the problem represented by the HESP is the insufficient government funding that limits the multi-faceted development of universities. Therefore, enlarging the funding scale has been identified as an effective solution for enhancing the overall quality of Taiwanese universities.

In the second part of the HESP policy agenda, the improvements that are represented in the policy focus on two dimensions to facilitate the universities’ international competitiveness. For one thing, the Whole-School program has identified the need for universities to not only retain the existing strength of research capacity but also improve the international academic influence and global visibility on the university rankings. For another, the Featured Areas Research Centre Program has identified the need for universities to build world-class research centre through university-industry collaborations. It also highlights the importance of converting academic capital into long-term economic growth for island-building. In other words, the problems represented by the HESP are the dissatisfactory performance of Taiwanese universities in the global university rankings and the lack of international competitiveness of institutions and research centres. With those concerns, pursuing the “world-class” university status on rankings has been identified as an effective solution for universities to demonstrate their improvement of international competitiveness and the ability to lead economic growth to serve the purpose of island-building.

To fulfill the goals of improving international competitiveness of universities, the government has invested $5.3 billion NTD in total in eligible institutions and research centres. The eligibility criteria include research productivity, the performance of global university rankings, and research centres or projects that support nation-building. There are four selective, public research universities (shared $4 billion NTD) and 24 institutions (shared $1.3 billion NTD) with high-quality research centres that received government funding. In other words, the four subsidized universities have shared more than 75% of the funds. Unsurprisingly, the four public universities to receive these subsidies overlap with the top five public universities to receive the first subsidies outlined above. All of them are research-intensive, selective, higher-ranked with STEM-specialties institutions (MOE, 2018, February 13).

What’s left unproblematic in the educational improvement representation of the policy?

The needs for improvement being identified in the first part of the HESP policy agenda focuses on the issue of insufficient government funding. The Taiwanese government enlarged the scale of sponsorship to support more institutions in multi-faceted management improvement. Nevertheless, it is problematic to see similar eligibility criteria for evaluating and selecting subsidized institutions in both parts of the HESP policy agenda. On the one hand, the government’s merit-based qualification standards have disproportionately favoured higher-ranked, research-intensive public universities with strength in STEM fields. On the other hand, the purpose of government subsidization is to support universities in creating more inclusive and just campuses, as well as to address concerns of equality and improve the university’s social responsibility. However, the majority of governmental funding went to minority higher-ranked first-tier universities, such as Taiwan University and Cheng Kung University. Noticeably, the HESP report of subsidized institutions has illustrated that the same institutions are being subsidized in both parts of the project (MOE, 2018, February 13). To put it another way, the Taiwanese government has employed similar merit-based evaluation criteria to assess institutions’ achievement in global rankings/international competitiveness and their performance in enhancing equality and social responsibilities, all of which promoted and perpetuated the neoliberal ideology of higher education (MOE, 2019, April 12).

Moreover, the need for improvement being identified in the second part of the HESP policy agenda highlights the importance of improving universities’ global rankings performance and building world-class research centres/disciplines to serve the purpose of nation-building. The problem representation normalizes the assumption that “improving the ranking performance of Taiwanese universities” can “improve the international competitiveness” of Taiwan. Such an assumption can be problematic given that it unproblematized the current rankings schemes which favoured and benefitted institutions in the Global North countries, especially those wealthy, English-speaking universities in North American and Western European countries (Stack, 2016). From a critical perspective, university rankings need to be considered as a strong epistemic instrument that symbolizes the impact of a Western global imaginary in maintaining the privileged position of specific institutions and higher education models in the Global North (Ishikawa, 2014; Rhoades et al., 2019; Stein & de Oliveira Andreotti, 2017). Moreover, the problem representation has conceptualized the “world-class” identity as the alignment with higher-ranked institutions in the Global North Anglophone nations. Such conceptualization can be problematic given that it unproblematized the current global order of geopolitics and normalized the superior position of Western, English-speaking countries. In other words, in the global higher education settings, there appears to be an emerging trend toward isomorphism, with HEIs all over the world pursuing similar goals of aligning with the “world-class university” cohort.

Policy into practice: The case of Taiwan University

The Taiwan University (NTU) is one of the most selective public research universities in Taiwan. It is also one of the five main government funding recipients of the HESP. This section reviews the practices of NTU to explore how one public research university responded to a governmental IHE policy. Based on the university’s HESP Executive Office website, I found that most practices regarding higher education internationalization in NTU respond to and align with the agenda of the HESP. In other words, this study has not perceived disparities between governmental policy (i.e., HESP) and practices at the institutional level (NTU, 2018).

With the ambition to create a global campus with high-impact research, the goal of NTU is to support its competitive research fields to achieve a world-class level and exert greater influence in the global academic communities. Additionally, NTU has the desire and prospect to build a global campus that attracts and recruits more international talents and professionals, including outstanding international students and distinguished faculty members, to align with other top-ranked overseas institutions.

With the ambition to become a world-class university, NTU has set three goals to accomplish. The short- and medium-term goal of NTU is to align with the level of Kyoto University, which is ranked 38th in the 2021 QS World University Rankings in Asia regions (QS World University Rankings, 2020). To achieve the goal in this stage, NTU proposes to double the number of journal articles published in top international journals, as well as to improve the quality of all publications of NTU faculty members and researchers. Moreover, the university highlights the importance of integrating international teaching, learning, and research resources and promoting cooperation between university and industry.

The long-term goal of NTU is to align with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), which is ranked 5th in the 2021 QS World University Rankings in the U.S. region (QS World University Rankings, 2020). The achievements in this stage are to develop five to ten globally competitive research fields at the world-class level and to educate interdisciplinary international leadership teams and talents. Finally, the ultimate goal of NTU is to become a world-class university in Asia with high-impact research centres and strong global competitiveness (NTU, 2018).

Based on the Higher Education Sprout Project, there are two primary strategic frameworks that the NTU will use to meet these goals. One is building high-impact research centres and fields of study, the other one is establishing an international higher education talents ecosystem.

Discussion and Conclusion