An Analysis Of The Transformation Of Normal Education In Taiwan

The normal education of Taiwan began in the Japanese occupied period, after liberating in1945, Taiwan based on the normal education policy of Chinese Mainland and made thedevelopment of it’s normal education gone through a "secondary normal education teacherscollege education undergraduate education" of the road. To the90’s, during the political systemfrom oneparty dictatorship "unified" system into a multi-party "diversification" system, and theeconomic structure from a closed agricultural economy into an open dynamic industrial andcommercial economy, and the people’s democratic consciousness awakening, the normaleducation of Taiwan is increasingly exposed much shortcomings. In addition, influenced by thereform of the teacher education in the whole world and the Postmodernism, the closed system ofnormal education increasingly unable to adapt to the development of the society, so, in thecommon efforts of internal and external factors, the normal education of Taiwan runs to the roadof transformation.In1994, Taiwan issued the law of "teacher education" and began to reform it’s normaleducation. The transformation includes the reform of teacher training system, and the teachertraining institutions and the teacher training courses. According to the changed situation,Taiwan constantly revised the laws and regulations of it’s normal education and made the teachereducation a new development. The transformation of the teacher training system has thefollowing aspects: the teacher training channels from closed to open, the teacher traininginstitutions from unified to diversification, the teacher education cost from the public to pay fees,the educational practice and teacher certification system institutionalized, and teacher educationintegrated. The transformation of the teacher training institution has the following aspects:Normal college combined with the adjacent University or upgraded to comprehensive university,and adjusted it’s education department, in addition, non-normal universities also setup training center to participate in the teacher training. The transformation of the teachertraining curriculum has the following aspects: improve the function of general education, addthe credits of special course, bring the educational practice into the pre-vocational educationcurriculum, add the non-teacher training curriculum to train the second expertise of students.The transformation of teacher education in Taiwan achieves some remarkable results:teacher education idea transform from "normal education" to "teacher education", teachereducation system transform from “closed” to “open”, the teacher training curriculum transformfrom "professional" to " general ". But, during the development of the society, teacher educationof Taiwan is facing some new challenges, such as the promblem of the function of normalcolleges and universities, the supply and demand imbalance of teachers, and the decline of quality of teacher education. How to deal with these challenges and how to promote the furtherdevelopment of teacher education, becoming the focus of education reform in Taiwan. Taiwanis an important part of the Chinese nation, and the two sides of the Taiwan Straits have thesimilar background in history and culture, so, the experience and lessons from the transformationof teacher education in Taiwan have an important inspiration to us.