Alternative entry programs sow seeds of academic success for Taiwan university hopefuls

2019/05/03

Taiwan’s Ministry of Education is offering senior high students who excel in certain subjects the opportunity to take university courses in related fields without sitting the General Scholastic Ability Test.

 Conducted on a trial basis since 2015, the initiative circumvents the country’s primary college entrance examination held in January each year. Around 1 percent of university admissions are gained via the program, according to the MOE.

 The move, one of the latest in a succession of reforms to Taiwan’s university admissions process commencing in the 1990s, advances the goal of replacing a single exam with a multichannel system enabling the maximum number of students to attain academic achievement.

 Hocheng Hong, president of National Tsing Hua University in northern Taiwan’s Hsinchu City, said three or four decades ago, society believed it efficient and fair to use one standard to evaluate all students. “Since then, there’s been a paradigm shift toward a pluralistic model of learning and university recruitment.”

As chairman of the Joint Board of College Recruitment Commission based at National Taiwan University in Taipei, Hocheng administers the country’s increasingly flexible admissions environment. Over the course of his career, the scholar has implemented some of the most influential changes to the system.

 In 2007, NTHU pioneered the groundbreaking Stars program. Intended to reduce disparities between urban and rural admissions, the process gives top priority to students’ school rankings determined by grades across all exams during the first two years of senior high.

 Prior to its introduction, relatively few pupils from outside Taiwan’s most prestigious high schools were admitted to top-level universities. In the inaugural year of Stars, which is now in place nationwide, NTHU enrolled around 150 freshmen from 32 schools across the country.

Hocheng said Stars was designed on the premise that all high schools should be treated equally. A JBCRC survey of the academic performance of some 400,000 students admitted to Taiwan’s universities from 2011 to 2014 found program participants outperformed those gaining entry through other channels.

“Students who overachieve in senior high usually continue to do so at university as they are motivated to understand the importance of time management,” Hocheng said.

 In addition to Stars, the Personal Application Process offers access to 70 academic and research-oriented universities. Tertiary education hopefuls can apply to a maximum six college departments using their GSAT scores. If successful, they are typically required to present a portfolio documenting extracurricular activities and results in various academic and sporting competitions, as well as attend an interview before gaining admission.

 Pupils who do not obtain a place at a preferred college using this approach can take the Advanced Subjects Test staged in summer. About 30 percent of college students gain admission through the AST, with around 15 percent using the Stars program and remainder qualifying through the Personal Application Process.

Source: Taiwan Today (https://taiwantoday.tw/index.php)