Moving toward Community Colleges: A New Alternative in Postsecondary Technical Education in Taiwan, Republic of China.

As we enter the 21st century, most of the countries in the world are facing three critical challenges: competing in a global economy, reversing the expansion of a permanent and disenfranchised underclass, and developing a workforce with information-age skills. Many educational reform strategies have been adopted to meet the challenges. In Taiwan, community colleges are proposed as an effective measure to cope with such challenges. The traditional functions of community colleges include transfer education, vocational-technical education, continuing education, developmental education, and community service. It is imperative to establish community colleges to carry out these functions while still maintaining the traditional characteristics of community colleges: low tuition, cost-benefit justifiable programs, and community-based learning. A draft of the Community College Act was enacted by the Ministry of Education (1998) to accelerate the establishment of community colleges. However, the theory and practice in designing such colleges must be scrutinized to smooth the inception of such colleges in Taiwan. This paper addresses the background of such inception, the current status of postsecondary technical education, and the planning strategies for the establishment of community colleges. Contains 16 references. (Author/VWC)