In order to raise the competitiveness of TKU, the university has decided to restructure its Education Development Center (EDC). The decision came through on Friday, May 25 at TKU’s 91st administrative meeting, which involves canceling the center entirely and redistribute its four divisions that were under it to the College of Education and Office of Academic Affairs. This plan will be further discussed at the 51st Administrative Affairs meeting on this coming Friday.

Currently there are four divisions under EDC, which carry out both teaching and administrative work; they are Division of General Education and Core Curriculum (DGECC), Division of Instructional Technology (DIT), Division of Distance Education (DDE) and Division of Educational Quality Management (DEQM). However, for the future academic competitiveness of TKU, President Chang Horng-jinh believes that all the divisions except the DIT should focus more on research oriented work. They were categorized under EDC years ago when TKU’s College of Education (CD) did not exist. Today, as the CD has been established for some time now, President Chang pointed out in the meeting on Friday, that it was high time to reconsider a better organization.

The decision whether DDE and DEQM should be under the reign of CD generated most debate at the meeting. President Chang was convinced that it was only a matter of time for DDE to be in a league of its own; however, for the time being, it should be part of the CD establishment. As for DEQM, the Dean of the CD, Chen Bo-Chang expressed his concerns over the extensiveness of its tasks such as setting short- and long-term goals of teaching, evaluation of teachers and TQM. He wondered whether his college was able to fulfill all of them. Both Vice Presidents, Flora Chang and Feng Chao-Kang assured him that the future of DEQM was definitely in research so CD should be a better ‘home’ for it and Feng Chao-kang, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, will help supervise the task of teaching quality evaluation.

Finally, it was decided at the meeting that DGECC, DDE and DEQM would be integrated into CD, whereas DIT would be a division under the Office of Academic Affairs. Furthermore, DGECC will be renamed as the General Education and Core Curriculum Center, DDE as Distance Education Center and DEQM will merge with the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the CD to become Center for the Study of Higher Education and Assessment.

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