Taiwan Today

A key issue in any education system is whether colleges and universities are meeting the practical needs of business and industry. The Free China Review sought views on this topic from three em­ployment and human resource experts: Chen Tzong-hsien (陳聰憲), director of the Youth Employment Services and Vo­cational Training Department of the Na­tional Youth Commission, Executive Yuan; Huang Tung-chun (黃童圳), direc­tor of the Institute of Human Resource Management, National Central Univer­sity; and Michelle Lin (林美雪), senior manager of human resources, Aetna Life Insurance Co. of America, Taiwan Branch Office. Excerpts follow.

FCR: Is there a gap between the educa­tion provided by colleges and universities and the needs of the job market?

Chen Tzong-hsien: It’s true that col­lege and university graduates in liberal arts, theoretical sciences, and agriculture have difficulty finding jobs related to their specialties. Take last year, for example. There were 150,000 college and univer­sity graduates, and about 50,000 of them used our employment services. We col­lected information on 150,000 vacancies, meaning every applicant had three job opportunities. But still, many of the appli­cants had trouble finding appropriate jobs. The reason is that more than 75 percent of the 150,000 vacancies were for engineer­ing or business majors.

Some people think Taiwan’s higher education system is growing much too fast compared with its commerce and in­dustry. Many labor-intensive industries don’t need employees with an advanced educational background, and people with higher education don’t want low-level jobs—that’s where the problem lies. Some businesspeople think students mainly acquire theoretical knowledge at school. But employers don’t need theo­ries. They want something practical.

There are suggestions that the Min­istry of Education should evaluate all college and university departments and shut down those that cannot meet the practical needs of society. But there are also people who think that meeting the needs of the job market should not be the only goal of higher education. Higher education should be thought of as a proc­ess that builds personality and that ben­efits the country’s long-term manpower needs. Focusing only on a short-term job market will cause serious problems in the future.

Huang Tung-chun: From an economic point of view, a 2.65 percent unem­ployment rate for people with a college or university education is not a serious prob­lem. It’s normal for this particular group to have a comparatively higher unemploy­ment rate. It’s also a fact that graduates with certain majors have difficulty finding jobs. This means there is a gap between the edu­cation system and the job market.

This gap, however, is reasonable be­cause of the different paces of education and economic development: It takes four years to finish college, while the economic structure is changing much faster. So the education system should not take all the blame. Businesses should provide vocational training to close the gap. For example, in the past, students learned to use typewriters at school. When they started to work, they didn’t know how to use computers. It wasn’t their fault.

Michelle Lin: The gap between what people learn at school and the practical needs of the job market is actually quite large. This is rooted in the goals and func­tions of university education. When I was a student, I was taught that university is a place for erudition, which is O.K. for those who decide to pursue academic careers. But because the equipment and research projects at universities are all designated to achieve the goal of erudition, they may neglect how these things can be applied to daily life. Also, professors don’t care much about the needs of the job market. Their performance evaluations and pro­motions do not depend on how well they prepare students to meet market needs.

If we want to change the situation, we have to change the goals of the higher education system. It’s about time for schools to think about how to teach stu­dents to apply what they learn at school to their jobs after graduation.

How could schools prepare students better for the job market?

Huang: The higher education system could be more active and aggressive in preparing students for the job market. The most direct way is to adjust curricu­lum and departments, which means cut­ting down on classes or departments that do not meet the needs of society.

Higher education is not for voca­tional training but for building the abili­ties of students to think and make judgments. Besides considering the prac­tical needs of the job market, it’s even more important for schools to build prob­lem-solving skills so that students can meet the needs of businesses.

How are college job-placement offices helping students?

Huang: The function of placement offices is actually very limited. Statistics show that about one-third of all graduates find jobs through newspaper ads, another third through introductions by friends and relatives, and the remaining third through civil service examinations or public em­ployment agencies. Very few students look for jobs through their school place­ment offices.

Most male students have to fulfill their [required 22-month] military service after graduating, and it’s become a trend for many female students to go on to graduate school. They are not facing the necessity of finding a job immediately af­ter graduation, so they don’t need a school job-placement office. As a result, the schools don’t think it’s worthwhile to give these offices more manpower or funding.

Chen: When students graduate, many of them have to depend on their own re­sources. It’s like a blind date. You depend on your luck to find the right job. To help students understand the job market better, the National Youth Commission has as­sisted fourteen schools in the last two years to establish employment information centers. These centers should have a collec­tion of work-related information such as introductions to government agencies and large private enterprises. This way, students can find out things like what kind of people these agencies or companies want to hire, or what they can do to prepare themselves better for the jobs they are interested in. Before students leave campus, they will al­ready have an idea of the job market and what channels they can use to find a job.

How do private enterprises recruit em­ployees, and how important a factor is educational background in hiring decisions?

Lin: We recruit through various channels. Newspaper ads get the most re­sponses. We usually get five, six hundred applications for twenty vacancies. Our four thousand [insurance] agents in Tai­wan also recommend people. We have an active file of candidates. When there is a job opening, it’s very convenient to look into this file. We also hire people through information provided by the Na­tional Youth Commission. There are many people who just send resumes without knowing whether there is a job available. Actually, businesses are very interested in these people if their resumes are impressive.

In my company, educational back­ground is a consideration—but not the most important one—when we recruit people. We hire people who have gradu­ated from certain departments for some technical jobs such as accountants or computer engineers. But in other posi­tions, even at the management level, edu­cational background is not that important. Work attitude and an ability to learn, communicate, and adapt are more important. All newcomers have a lot of learning to do in this field and about this company. We find there is no difference in learning ability between a person with a master’s and one with an undergraduate degree. It’s not true that people with higher education always have higher potential for career advance­ment. In my experience, however, I have found that college graduates do learn and adapt better than junior college gradu­ates. Maybe it’s because they’ve gone through the competition of the college entrance examination.

But after employees are hired, it no longer makes any difference if they have a junior college degree or a bachelors’s or master’s. They are evaluated according to their performance and contributions to the company. Our system of promotion and raises is based on performance, not on educational background. To get promoted you have to take more respon­sibility and contribute more to the company.

What kinds of adaptation problems do new graduates have when they enter the job market?

Lin: I’m afraid college graduates are not very well prepared for the real world. Some of them are even a little naive and impractical when they first start to work. They don’t even know some of the most basic things. For example, they might ask for a lot [regarding salary or position]. They don’t understand that businesses must take into account practical considerations in order to survive, and that employees are promoted or re­warded only after they have made visible contributions.

Although different occupations re­quire different types of people, there are some common needs. For example, the ability to deal with other people and to work as part of a team are important in nearly all professions. Many newcomers go through a long period of frustration because they don’t know how to fit into a group. Also, university graduates don’t have enough problem-solving skills. In our educational system, a student can get high scores just by memorizing a text­book instead of analyzing it. When people have problems [at work], they don’t know what to do. It’s true that schools can’t teach students how to solve every kind of problem, but there are certain basic steps that can help us find easier and faster so­lutions. Most college graduates don’t know these basic steps.

What role should the government play in providing employment services to people with higher education?

Chen: Basically, we act as a bridge between those who want jobs and those who want to hire people. The National Youth Commission provides employ­ment services and vocational training for people with college or graduate degrees, and the Council of Labor Affairs for people with lower educational levels. Our most effective way of helping people has been our second-specialty training program, started in 1979. In three-and-a­ half to four months, we provide intensive training for graduates with “cold” [or unmarketable] majors so that they can move beyond what they learned in col­lege and adapt to something new. After they’ve completed the class, we help them get jobs in their new field. Each year we train 305 students in three classes, one for business administration, one for international trade, and one for English secretaries. Also, since 1981, when Tai­wan’s information industry started to boom, we’ve worked with the Institute for Information Industry in sponsoring a computer science class, which trains 360 students a year. But because of limited funds, we have difficulty expanding any of these training sessions.

In the last three years, we’ve found it more efficient and less expensive to work with schools in setting up training courses. They already have the facilities, so we only have to pay for the teachers’ salaries and insurance for the students. It’s also more convenient for young people in different parts of the island to attend these courses.

Huang: I think the best role for the government is to be an information chan­nel. Government employment agencies shouldn’t try to create job opportunities. Under some projects, the government encourages private enterprises to hire people with Ph.D.s and it pays part of their salaries for the first year. This kind of project only solves unemployment problems temporarily, and the cost—both in manpower and money—is too high. In some cases, these people are hired only because the government is paying part of their salary, and their contracts are not renewed after one year, when the govern­ment funding ends.

Chinese tradition place great emphasis on higher education, even beyond the undergraduate level. How does this at­titude affect the efficiency of the education system and the employment market?

Chen: We have tried to promote the idea that in a commercial and industrial society, experience and professional skills are often more practical than higher education. But it’s dif­ficult to change the traditional Chinese concept that a uni­versity degree is a better guarantee for the future. This traditional attitude is one reason for the higher unem­ployment rate among people with college and gradu­ate degrees. The population with higher education is increasing, but jobs requiring higher education are not.

Very few people with a college degree are willing to take blue-collar jobs. As a result, Taiwan has to de­pend on foreign laborers for this kind of work. Foreign workers have solved part of the manpower prob­lem, but they have also brought new social problems.

From an employer’s point of view, a college degree doesn’t necessarily mean greater ability or a better work attitude. We held a series of three seminars at which businesspeople discussed their ex­periences in hiring people with higher degrees. It was common for them to feel that the higher one’s educational background, the lower one’s respect for a job. Also, the turnover rate is high. People with less education tend to stay at one company longer, but those with college degrees leave as soon as they find a better job.

Huang: The traditional Chinese atti­tude is only part of the reason why people go to college. The main reason is the reward system in our society. People with higher education usually receive higher pay, have better chances for promotion, and have a higher social status. A university degree is also beneficial if judged by return on investment. While the average salary for an undergraduate degree starts at around US$1,000 [per month], a person with a master’s degree can get about US$250 more for the same job. Most peo­ple aren’t likely to get a $250 raise in two years, so why not use the time to go to graduate school? Also, college graduates can get jobs at the management level, but high school or voca­tional junior college graduates can only get jobs at the techni­cian level. A technical staffer can never get into the management system. Therefore, we shouldn’t blame young people for seeking higher education. They cannot change the reward system. They have to go along with it and do what’s best for them.

Businesses complain that people with higher education usually have a higher turnover rate. This is still a result of our reward system. Employees at many family-owned companies, for ex­ample, can never work their way into the top positions. So why spend all their lives working for such a company? But if a company lets its employees see that they can move up the ladder in five or ten years if they work hard, more people will be willing to stay. This means businesses must have a good evaluation or grading system for promotions and raises.

If we can establish a system in which positions and salaries are based on ability instead of education, people will naturally change their attitude toward the value of higher education. In the U.S., for example, many Ph.D. candidates are foreigners because, for Americans, a per­son with a Ph.D. doesn’t necessarily earn more than someone with a lower educa­tion. This has gradually been happening in Taiwan in the past few years. Cur­rently, businesses have little need for em­ployees with such a high education, and there are not many vacancies for college teaching jobs. So people have started to question whether they really need a Ph.D. to start a career. As a result, some of our Ph.D. programs don’t have any new students right now.

Lin: More and more people are seek­ing a college or university education, and parents are encouraging their children to do so. As a result, the competition at this level of the employment market is getting stronger. And with the increase of the higher-educated population, there is already a structural unemployment crisis. I may get fifty applications for an opening requiring a university education or one hundred applicants for one that requires an MBA. But if I want an office girl with only a high school education, I have only five applicants.

Because of the competition, many col­lege graduates are willing to take lower pay and do lower-level jobs, and the situation is the same for people with even higher de­grees. In the past, it seemed very easy for people with graduate degrees to find jobs in their specialties, but it’s different now. I know many people who have master’s de­grees from very good schools and are over­-qualified for their jobs.

But businesses do not necessarily welcome over-qualified employees. One reason is cost. For the same job, an entry­-level employee with a master’s degree is customarily paid 10 to 20 percent more than a college graduate, whose pay is also higher than a junior college graduate. For some jobs, an aggressive and clear­-minded junior college graduate is more favorable because of the lower personnel costs. Also, in making personnel deci­sions, management generally has the idea that employees with higher education have higher expectations and are more difficult to manage. They prefer people with less education but a positive attitude and good learning ability. Besides, from a business point of view, two years of on­-the-job training are more useful than two years spent in graduate school.