Higher Education Institutional and Program Evaluations in Taiwan and the Emerging Roles of Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT)

Post-secondary education institutions in Taiwan are divided into two tracks, general higher education (HE) and technological and vocational education (TVE). The evaluation of all universities/colleges is mandated by the University Act. Higher education institutions receive mandated institutional evaluation every six years and program evaluation every five years. The purpose of this paper is to briefly introduce the status of higher education institutional and program evaluations in Taiwan as well as the emerging roles of the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (HEEACT). Both institutional and program evaluations are accreditation-oriented, adopting the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle with an emphasis on institutional and program self-positioning, student learning outcome, and mechanism for continuous improvement. As the third-party planner and implementer of higher education institutional and program evaluations, HEEACT has conducted internal and external assessments as well as entrusted third-party meta-evaluation to assure its quality of work. Faced with the emerging challenges, such as the Ministry of Education's new policy on requiring some universities/colleges to implement self-conducted external evaluation in replacement of the third-party program evaluation, HEEACT has to alter its roles and becomes a Critical Friend of higher education institutions and programs, a Change Agent of higher education institutional and program evaluation, and an Effective Facilitator of the international exchanges and cooperation on quality assurance and mutual recognitions of national qualifications. (Contains 3 figures.)