The enrollment rate for this year’s freshmen reaches 97.03%, a slight increase by 0.16% from that of last year. This may be a result of a shift in policy by the Ministry of Education (MOE), in which they allowed universities to have a higher proportion of students through the first stage of recruitment (applications and recommendations). It was increased from 30% to the current 40%. As a result, 36.9 percent of present TKU freshmen were recruited through this means. Thanks to this, TKU not only saw an increase of student enrollment albeit tiny, but also the quality of students that came in.
When the total number is broken down, we see that there is a 0.17% increase of student number (n=575) through recommendation by schools (230 students more than those of last year). Students got in through direct application, similarly, has increased from last year’s 97.11% to 98.19% of this year, making it a growth of 90 students to a number of 886. As the university could take on more students this way, it could raise the minimum scores for entrance at the second stage of recruitment, which is the joint university entrance examination. Hence, most colleges of TKU set higher scores for their students, with the College of Liberal Arts raising its bar the highest by 22.58 points more than that of last year, following by a 9.73 points of increase set by the College of Engineering.
When MOE announced this adjustment last year, President Flora Chang made sure that TKU could capitalize on the opportunity by being able to hand pick better students. Under her supervision, 80.4% of TKU departments raised their minimum requirements for the joint exam. Although in reality the average score of this year’s freshmen through this means fell short of the standard set in advance, it is still better than the average scores in the past two years. 70.6 percent of departments in fact were moderately successfully in recruiting students this way with the scores they set.
Despite that, Chen Han-quey, Secretary of the Academic Affairs, maintains that TKU still fares pretty well comparing with some private universities. This slight shortfall may have been contributed by the fact that other universities had also adjusted their requirements, which in turn had made them as competitive as TKU. He said that TKU would work harder to compete with universities such as Fu Jen Catholic University, Tung Hai University and Fong Jia University, who did better than TKU this year at the second stage of recruitment.
Dr. Flora Chang believes the number of student enrollment is vital as it is one of the criteria MOE evaluates the universities with. She urges her senior staff to strive for higher rate. The future seems to be in TKU’s favor as MOE intends to further increase the quota for students through applications and recommendations. ( ~Ying-hsueh Hu )
