Taiwan Review - Work in Progress

FHTAS offers students intensive training in drawing techniques and design. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

Taiwan's vocational senior high schools are endeavoring to adjust themselves to an economy in transition.

On a hot summer day, students from the departments of fine arts and crafts and advertisement design at the Fu-Hsin Trade and Arts School (FHTAS) are meeting in a multimedia room to hear about their senior schoolmates' work experiences. For these students, the two-month summer vacation is not a time for a holiday. While the school, having just dispatched graduates replete with three years of vocational education, prepares to usher in new student graduates of junior high schools, most of the students who have yet to finish their courses are required to attend the school's summer classes.

FHTAS is a prestigious private vocational senior high school known for producing art and design talent in Taiwan. It has a total of 5,300 students enrolled in both day and night programs, mostly between 16 and 18 years old. According to Lin Hsing-jian, one of the school's senior directors, 20 percent of the students will take up an occupation right after graduation. Among the nation's 157 vocational senior high schools, this percentage is quite high.

In order to help school students prepare to enter the job market, FHTAS regularly invites alumni to share their knowledge of the creative industries. This time a production team for a cartoon company that has just completed an animation feature film entitled The Legend of the Sea--Mazu has been invited to share their know-how concerning animated film production. "Whether you can play an indispensable role in your job depends on whether your work has commercial value," says a speaker to attentive students. "Currently talent specializing in animation special effects on both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait is badly needed. It is very easy for people with such talents to get high-paying jobs." Information shared by business insiders is helpful for students to understand what paths might be open to them, what they might be suited for and the kind of openings that they should look for.

Lin Shih-jen, director of Mazu, graduated from FHTAS around 30 years ago. Lin's experience in making animated films is invaluable for students, given that most animation companies in Taiwan are only capable of doing OEM work. Lin says that the skills students learn at this stage are basic but crucial for work. Nevertheless, "the industry is short of skilled talented people who know how to write computer programs or know how to use those programs written in English," he says. Lin has found that university-level fine art majors are usually not good at drawing while senior high school graduates can only handle very basic work, often lacking important skills such as English ability and computer knowledge. Students, he says, must have a wider skill set.

Taiwan's vocational education system currently includes five-year junior colleges, vocational senior high schools and undergraduate courses. Generally speaking, the purpose of such education is to cultivate the technical skills the economy needs. But what, exactly, those skills are, is the subject of frequent debate among the schools themselves. If the labor force participation rate is considered, the high employment rate of vocational school graduates--at 69 percent, second only to junior college graduates--suggests that the education they receive fits its purpose. Yet, ironically, the unemployment rate for vocational school graduates is also the highest of any educational group. On top of this, an ever increasing number of vocational senior high school graduates are choosing to continue their studies in higher education, which seems antithetical to the purpose of vocational senior high school education.

Generally speaking, getting a higher academic qualification has always had priority over other educational choices in Taiwan. Vocational senior high schools were traditionally seen as a "second best" option for those whose academic achievements at the junior high school level were not up to the standard required for admission to a good senior high school and preparation for university entrance. They were also for students who had to help with family finances. These notions have gradually changed, many parents still believe that nothing is as good as a university degree, which is considered to be a sine qua non for advancement into the middle class and eligibility for decent-paying jobs.

Junior high school students prepare for the basic competency test, a primary requirement for admission into advanced secondary education. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

There used to be very few channels through which vocational senior high school students could move on to tertiary education before the launch of educational reform in 1994. After a decade of reform, many more tertiary colleges offering programs to link with those of vocational senior high schools were established. This year the tertiary enrollment rate reached 97 percent. It is no longer difficult for vocational senior high school graduates to continue into higher education.

The manpower produced by vocational education made a great contribution to the country's economic boom in 1970s. But as Taiwan's economy has changed from labor-intensive manufacturing to knowledge-intensive and service-oriented industries, the level of technical knowledge required has also greatly increased, often demanding university graduate-level skills. But with required skills moving beyond the curriculum of vocational senior high schools and university entrance becoming available to just about everyone, vocational schools seemed about to lose their reason for being.

Over the past decade, some schools have been upgraded to colleges, while some have been transformed into comprehensive senior high schools which provide both vocational and ordinary academic programs and which are also allowed to set up junior high branches. The result is a reduction in the number of vocational senior high schools from 201 to 157 over the past eight years, while the number of senior high schools has increased from 242 to 314, according to statistics by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

Quality of education has been a crucial issue for vocational schools, in order to enhance which the government has been working to integrate vocational schools with relevant industries. A budget of NT$16.3 billion (US$494 million) has been allotted to enhance the overall quality of vocational schools as well as ordinary senior highs, while the closure of schools of poorer quality has been mooted.

Amongst 119 vocational senior high schools that were granted an MOE subsidy for quality education for the 2007 school year, FHTAS was said to score the highest. Wang Chih-cheng, FHTAS' principal, explains what lies behind recognition as a quality school. "FHTAS has kept its finger on the country's economic pulse and been worked closely with industry," he says. Taiwan is eagerly developing digital-related industries, such as video games, cartoons and multimedia presentation, and the school's specialty dovetails to the needs of this sector. "Our students are confident about their prospects because they are positioned at the cutting edge of industry trends," he says.

Wang thinks that the value of vocational education is it provides specific techniques for students to learn. "These techniques can create or add value to products, and an industry can be shaped accordingly," Wang says.

In a world of video graphics, it is easy to forget the importance of basic skills such as drawing by hand, yet this is fundamental importance in design. To strengthen their skill in this field, all the school's students are required to draw sketches every Monday morning. In this way Wang hopes to teach them not just to draw, but to mold their way of thinking. "I want students to understand that drawing by hand and observing with the naked eye are the absolutely essential requirements for a designer," he says. Wang also believes that creativity, which is often thought of as being a gift one either has or lacks, can be effectively taught. "I would spend an entire week on inspecting the third year students' art works, discussing with them their ideas, creativity and teamwork. Teachers are also required to submit evaluations of students' creative work," Wang says.

FHTAS usually has applicants outnumbering its enrollment openings. "We have students who score high enough to enter Jianguo Senior High School [one of the most prestigious boy's senior highs in Taipei] yet apply for FHTAS," says Lin Hsin-jien. "We have special programs for gifted students, too." Students of FHTAS are usually encouraged to acquire some kind of professional certification in some areas such as advertisement design, Web page design or visual communication, not to mention domestic or international art or design-related awards.

FHTAS may have an abundance of applicants, but other vocational senior high schools have encountered the opposite problem--a lack of students. According to MOE statistics, the number of first year students in vocational schools (not including 5-year junior colleges) in the 2001 school was only 61 percent of the 1995 school year enrollment. While this climbed slightly to 64 percent in the 2005 school year, the number of first year students attending senior high schools (including comprehensive senior high schools) increased by 57 percent in the past 10 years.

With an abundance of secondary and tertiary education, much of Taiwan's workforce now faces the unusual problem of being too highly qualified. There is a shortage of workers with basic professional skills and a surplus of jobseekers with high educational qualifications. Around 300,000 jobs at the basic professional level cannot be filled. Certain industries identified as strategically important to the country's development but lacking this kind of manpower include airplane repairs and maintenance, fabrics, mold-making, and some emerging but strategically important sectors such as food and beverages, tourism, digital content, financial services, design, telecommunications, engineering management, etc. Filling this gap should be exactly what vocational schools are designed for and students, aware that, in a tougher job market, practical and professional qualifications are increasingly important, have started to shown more interest in vocational high schools, pushing up their average enrollment.

Students learn how to build up their culinary skills at K.P. Chef's Factory. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

More than a decade ago, a few far-sighted educators had become aware of the shortage of chefs in the food and beverage sector. Kaiping Senior High School accordingly established a culinary department in 1991. Now the school has been transformed completely into a culinary school. Of some 100 vocational senior high schools that offer culinary programs, Kaiping is a very popular choice.

After lunchtime on a summer weekday, Kaiping's students doing internships at the school's restaurant, K.P. Chef's Factory, are busy cleaning up the kitchen and utensils. A few experienced chefs are on the site to teach them. Summer vacation is a time for student volunteers to build and hone their professional skills. The school has headhunted some noted chefs to work full time at Kaiping and the school works hard at forging relationships between respected chefs and students. The chefs have also benefited, as their cooperation with Kaiping has done much to raise their social status and professional image.

Kaiping offers a liberal environment for students to learn. They are not forced or pushed to learn and have the opportunity to make mistakes. Hong Sheng-dong, a former Sheraton Hotel chef now working as a full-time teacher in Kaiping's western food department, says that he wants to give students a thorough understanding of the food and beverage industry. "Kaiping's students are smart. They always question why things are the way they are. Teaching them can be a challenge, but they will definitely be very good assistants to any chef if they are trained," Hong says. When doing internships, students do not spend all their time slaving over a hot stove, or doing menial jobs for long hours like the apprentices of the past. They are required to be capable of both writing and speaking about the culinary profession, as well.

Hsu Han-wen, a Kaiping graduate, has been interested in cooking from a young age. "My family runs a Chinese-style cafeteria. I tasted many foods and wanted to eat something different. Then I became interested in western food and wanted to learn to be a chef," says Hsu. When he decided to go to Kaiping, his parents were happy because he had previously show little interest in studying. At Kaiping, Hsu took a self-directed learning program, which was actually tougher than the regular ones. But the learning experience built his confidence. After graduation, he went to Australia to study English and returned to work temporarily at the K.P. Chef's Factory. "I don't want to be looked down as a person that knows only how to use a knife. I want to learn more," he says. Talent and skill, he says, are always in demand.

Yeh Hsuan-fu, who will soon graduate from Kaiping, is another example of a student who has found a new confidence through the education she received. She says half of her classmates' families are engaged in culinary trade-related businesses, including her own. Kaiping provides students with a solid practical training, and she thinks it will help her realize her dream of opening her own highly individual coffee shop. "It's not difficult. We have taken courses about marketing and food materials. We know how to examine the advantages and disadvantages we have in the job market," she says. Currently she is working as a technician in Wang Group's Yuan-shao restaurant, where she did her internship a year ago and got hired afterwards. When asked if she will pursue advanced study, Yeh says that half of her classmates are not interested in study, including her. However, in teaching her practical skills, the school has offered her a way to enjoy learning.

Luo Jun-yann, principal of Kaiping, says that the school seeks to cultivate the talents the industry needs. What those are, is something that is always on his mind. But Kaiping still takes a humanistic approach to education. "We won't try to turn a guava into an apple because apples sell better. Our job is to help the guava be the best guava," Luo says. Since culinary arts go easily cross borders, the school also helps students to strengthen their abilities to work in international markets.

The worth of a vocational-high education is something the MOE is taking pain to stress. "When professional skills are more in demand than a university degree, why hurry to try to find a university place?" the ministry says.

Work in Progress

Related Articles