Under the influences of low birth rate, globalization and information technology, the development of Taiwan’s higher education is facing challenges and transformation. How to improve the institution’s characteristics and competitiveness and make the best use of the resources through integration mechanism for sustainable development in the future have become essential issues in every institution.
In view of this, Taiwan Assessment and Evaluation Association (TWAEA) has started to hold study tour to learn more about the trend of international institutional research since 2016. In 2018, trip to Kanto region of Japan was organized and visited six universities with excellent reputation in Tokyo, Japan, including University of Tsukuba, Toyo University, Kanda University of International Studies, Chiba Institute of Technology, Sophia University, and The University of Tokyo. Besides, Director Lin from Education Division, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office specially came to join the meeting with the representatives from Taiwan. This study tour was led by Dr. Chin-Chuan Lin, Supervisor of TWAEA, and the participating institutions were 4 national universities, 2 private universities, 1 national university of science and technology, and 5 private universities of science and technology with 1 Principal, 7 Vice-principals, 4 R&D Heads, 1 Head from Office of Academic Affairs and 6 senior supervisors, totaling 19 representatives of the delegation.
During this five-day visit, besides listening to the lectures at University of Tsukuba given by Mr. Kaneko Motohisa, a member of the Central Review Committee of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Professor De Yongbao, the director of MEXT and former vice president of the University of Tsukuba to let the delegation to have a deeper understanding about the current development and management of Japanese higher education. Visits to five distinctive institutions, in terms of student number, were also arranged, which were University of Tokyo and Toyo University with long history and large scale of students, Chiba Institute of Technology and Sophia University with medium-sized of students and Kanda Foreign Language University with small size of the students. The common point of these schools is that they pay special attentions to international activities and development; in the same time, due to the investment and promotion of institutional research, through data analysis and decision-making, institutions can maintain stable and continuous growth under the environment with drastic changes.
The higher education in Japan is facing the same dilemma of low birth rate as Taiwan. The government’s funding to institutions is no longer as good as it used to be; therefore, the universities in Japan are also committed to develop characteristics to cultivate talents required by international community, actively promote internationalization strategies to recruit international students. In order to enhance the students’ satisfaction to learning and teaching quality and decrease the suspension rate, Institutional Research is made to investigate the situations. It is hoped that the visit to Japan this time can provide the solutions to colleges and universities to solve problems, by learning from Japan’s institutional management and research experiences, and how they expand the international territory, teaching effectiveness enhancement and development of characteristics.