By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The government should offer more incentives and promote collaboration between educational institutions and local industries to increase technological and vocational education’s appeal to students, a group of university professors said yesterday.
While the government is set to implement the 12-year national education system, the direction of technological and vocational education — which was once the pride of the nation’s education system — has been a concern, the Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP) told a press conference.
TAUP president Lu Chung-chin (呂忠津) yesterday released the association’s recommendations on how to restore the quality of technological and vocational education in the nation, saying that government resources and attention have been focused on high schools and have marginalized vocational schools.
“The priority issue is that students in technological and vocational schools should not be seen as second grade. This perception should be eliminated, so that young people would regard attending vocational schools as a good career choice,” National Taipei College of Business president Lai Cheng-chang (賴振昌) said.
The Ministry of Education should establish recruiting and collaboration programs, which would create a win-win situation for businesses and students, he said.
The association called for a Cabinet-level national conference on talent strategy management to lay out a mid to long-term plan about talent placement, recruiting and development, all of which have been ignored in the past and have hurt Taiwan’s national competitiveness because the job market and education system are not in sync.