ABSTRACT
The system of technological and vocational education has played a vital role in the process of Taiwan’s economic development. During the 1950s, when the domestic industrial structure was still at a labour-intensive stage, most students who completed their elementary education entered junior high school, with only a few choosing to go to junior vocational high schools. Later, in the latter half of the 1960s, junior vocational high schools began to phase out while the number of senior vocational high schools increased in order to meet the manpower demand from the labour-intensive industries. Also in the latter half of the 1960s, the number of five-year junior colleges increased significantly and a new two-year junior college system was implemented for senior vocational school graduates. Both of the junior college systems were designed to train middle-level managerial staff and skilled workers. Also in the early 1960s the first institute of technology in Taiwan was established, bringing to the labour market through its graduates a source of professionally-trained managerial and technological personnel. At the same time ‘vocational education’ was renamed ‘technological and vocational education’.
