The Transfer And Adaptation Of Education Priority Zones Policy In Taiwan

Author(s):

Hsiao-Chi Juan(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2014

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 12 C, Education Policies and the Politics of Equity

Paper Session

Time:

2014-09-05

09:00-10:30

Room:

B334 Sala de Aulas

Chair:

Janne Varjo

Contribution

Education Priority Zones (EPAs) policy has implemented in Taiwan for more than fifteen years. According to the principle of positive discrimination, EPAs has become the most important education policy promoting equality of education opportunity in Taiwan. By supplying the needs of school directly by passing local governments, EPAs is praised for realizing the spirit of horizontal equity.

EPAs had been promoted in England in 1967 originally after the publishing of the Plowden Report. Compulsory education in US had been advocated during the period of Great Society Act. Meanwhile the Japan and other Asian countries were during their rapid growth of economic, and came out with the political needs of educational modernization policy .The EPAs policy in Taiwan is hard to avoid the influence across nations in the world in the age of globalization. It is important to realize the impacts and process of education policy borrowing in Taiwan. Arguably, would the local problems be solved by the “best practice” elsewhere, or the policy just be used as a kind of tool to set up the political agenda?

The main purpose of the research is to illuminate the role of policy borrowing from abroad, and inquire the localization process by tracing the consequences in school sites. The research questions lay on how the ideas of the EPAs policy generated from Europe are localized in Taiwan? What are the possible factors making influence during the adaptation and implement of the local policy?

The viewpoint of the research is based on the framework of policy borrowing, and local education policy research.

Multiple levels' Data from central government to schools are collected and analyzed to elaborate main policy problems and purposes. Different discourses generated by political collations are revealed based on analysis of mass media and government documents analysis.

Method

The research adopts mainly on qualitative studying approaches, included document collections, interviews, media analysis, and sites observations. The official documents collected include the program documents and annual reports, technical reports from program staffs, and recorders of committee. The documents about series education plans of compulsory education are also collected for historical analysis. The database of news paper is used for the purpose of gathering the public opinions of the policy. There are 24 participants been interviewed, including 4 centre government authorized officers and employees, 6 members of executive board, 2 members of local government education sector employees, and 14 program managers at schools. All the interviews are transformed to descriptions for analysis.

Expected Outcomes

The main research finding dedicates that under the elite model of Taiwan’s bureaucracy system, the selective borrowing shows up the logic combined with institutional and socio-cultural approach. The discourses of social justice, local layers, school administrators, and policy elites all emerged in policy arena and problem setting stages. However, the structural factors included political conditions, economic environment, and existing policies restricted the process and adaptation of borrowing, so the purpose of transfer was more likely to find a “quick-fixed” policy to solve local problems. The advocacy coalition used the policy as legitimacy to set up political agenda on one hand, and implemented the project by the mechanism existed on the other hand. The political analysis of borrowing reveals that the policy-scape was limiting transferred and the policy logic of EPAs still concentrated on infrastructures demands The understanding of influencing factors of policy borrowing and adaptation process is beneficial to future policy making and predicting.

References

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Author Information

Hsiao-Chi Juan (presenting / submitting)

national taiwan normal university

education

new taipei

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