Legislative Acts

University Act Amendment

Taiwan’s University Act has not been comprehensively revised since its last full review in 2005, more than 20 years ago. On August 5, 2026, the Legislative Yuan’s Education and Culture Committee reviewed the University Act amendment draft. Legislator Ju-Chun Ko put forward four reform proposals: guaranteed teacher and student seats on presidential selection committees, frontline teachers and more students in university councils, growth-oriented faculty evaluation, and a dedicated student union chapter. He said plainly that Taiwan should not govern its “iPhone-era” universities with “Nokia 3310-era” rules.

Why the University Act Needs Revision

The current University Act was last comprehensively reviewed in 2005, before smartphones existed. Two decades later, the technological environment, industrial demand, and talent-development model have all been transformed, yet higher-education governance has largely stood still, unable to respond to today’s social and campus reality.

In January 2026, Ko used a “Nokia 3310 vs iPhone” analogy when questioning the Ministry of Education: the government is still trying to govern universities in the AI era with outdated rules. Deputy Minister of Education Chu Chun-chang responded that the Ministry would collect views through a late-January meeting of university presidents and release a preliminary version of the University Act amendment draft in the next legislative session.

As generative AI penetrates every industry, “whether universities still have value” has become a hot topic in the tech and business communities. Ko argues that higher-education reform cannot stop at slogans. The Ministry must act concretely, or universities will struggle to meet the fundamental challenges of the AI generation.

Ko’s Four Reform Proposals

1. Guarantee Teacher and Student Seats on Presidential Selection Committees

Ko argues that both public and private universities should guarantee teachers and students seats during presidential selection, with key procedures and information made public. Students are core stakeholders in campus governance. If universities cannot practice openness, transparency, and democratic participation internally, how can students be expected to believe in and defend democracy after they leave campus?

This is not an empty demand. As of July 2025, 29 of Taiwan’s 45 national universities (about 64%) already included students on their presidential selection committees, showing the practice is highly feasible.

Ko also cited the Youth Basic Act, passed in third reading at the end of December 2025. Citizens aged 18 already have the right to vote, recall, initiate, and referendum and can even help decide national affairs, yet they cannot decide who leads their own university. He called that gap “absurd.”

2. University Councils: Frontline Teachers and More Students

Ko notes that many university councils nominally include teacher representatives, but in practice are filled with academic and administrative supervisors, sometimes with managers “impersonating” teacher representatives. This distorts the meaning of teacher representation and turns the council—meant to oversee administration and balance power—into an extension of the administration.

He proposes bringing teachers who hold no academic or administrative post and who work at the frontline of teaching and research into the decision-making core. He also argues that the student share should rise from the current one-tenth to at least one-eighth, and up to one-fifth depending on school size and circumstances. The Ministry’s director-general for higher education responded that raising student representation to 1/8 is feasible and that initial consensus has been reached with teacher and student groups, with a gradual path toward one-fifth. Teacher representatives currently account for no less than half of council members by regulation; the Ministry also supports raising the share of teachers without administrative posts, though the definition of “teachers without administrative posts” still needs to be clarified.

Ko also drew on history: Hu Shih once founded a new school across from the original one to defend student self-governance. Ko lamented that in the 115th year of the Republic (2026), Taiwan still has not solved the problem Hu Shih faced in the early Republic era.

3. Growth-Oriented Faculty Professional Development Evaluation

Article 21 of the University Act requires universities to establish a faculty evaluation system to support professional development and improve teaching quality, with teaching being the most important element.

Over the years, however, some schools’ evaluations have drifted from this purpose, overemphasizing the number of papers, journal rankings, and short-term performance. Teaching input, student counseling, social service, industry-academia cooperation, and cross-disciplinary contributions are treated as secondary. Faculty end up doing research for evaluation and teaching for numbers, which departs from the essence of education, squeezes the space for diverse faculty development, and has produced “perennial assistant professors” and harmed faculty rights.

The project-based faculty problem is even more serious. Some universities cut personnel costs by intentionally using “failed evaluation” as grounds for dismissal, then rehiring teachers on fixed-term “project-based faculty” contracts, leaving them to continue teaching while being treated as “disposable scholars.” As early as 2023, the Control Yuan issued a correction to the Ministry of Education, saying the Ministry had let universities substitute project-based faculty for tenured positions at scale, contrary to policy intent. After the correction, the Ministry imposed a “cap” that rewarded schools with NT$100,000 for each project-based faculty position not filled, effectively pushing schools to dismiss project-based faculty faster.

Ko argues that evaluation should be growth-oriented, with genuinely plural promotion paths that support different types of faculty, rather than serving as a tool for punishment, elimination, or administrative control. He also asks the Ministry to clarify the situation of project-based faculty through legislation and protect teachers’ basic labor rights. Education Minister Cheng Ying-yao responded that the Ministry has already opened teaching and industry-academia promotion tracks, but most universities still prefer research-based promotion, and the system should be more inclusive.

4. A Dedicated Student Union Chapter

Ko supports adding a student union chapter to the University Act, requiring universities to help establish student unions elected democratically by all students and guarantee their independence in personnel, organization, finances, and expression.

He stresses that student self-governance is not a favor granted by the school; it is an indispensable part of democratic education. Through elections, deliberation, negotiation, oversight, and public participation, students learn how to bear responsibility, respect differing opinions, and solve problems together. A truly progressive university does not fear student voices; a truly confident university does not see student self-governance as a nuisance.

From Admissions Reform to Ending Exam-Oriented Education

This amendment agenda continues Ko’s long-standing concern with admissions reform. On March 4, 2025, he joined high school student representatives from across Taiwan at a Legislative Yuan press conference titled “Review the College Admissions System and End Exam-Oriented Education,” calling on schools nationwide to stop publishing admission rankings and creating anxiety.

He noted that when the 108 curriculum guidelines were introduced, the government promised to “help every child succeed” and support “aptitude-based development and lifelong learning,” yet after ten or twenty years, the burden on students has barely changed. A 2023 survey by the Kids Welfare League Foundation found that up to 64.7% of junior and senior high school students said they face difficulties in life, with the biggest source of pressure being schoolwork.

He also questioned whether the “plural admissions” system championed by education officials has actually become “admissions by money”. Online platforms sell “learning portfolio ghostwriting” services, with a single vendor selling over 50,000 copies, and a complete admissions package costing over NT$10,000, while official surveys claim there is no “commodification of learning portfolios.”

In the AI era, he asked whether it is still appropriate to evaluate students by test scores when someone trained ChatGPT-4 to pass National Taiwan University’s medical school entrance exam. He argues that the next step is to use more tools and platforms to help students grow in diverse ways. This is why his version of the AI Basic Act emphasizes “digital equity”—to relieve learning and exam pressure for all students in Taiwan and prevent severe digital divides.

Next Steps and Goals

Ko hopes this round of University Act amendment will deliver four things concretely: bring teachers and students into university decision-making, return university councils to frontline teachers, put faculty evaluation back on professional growth, and institutionalize student self-governance. Through this amendment, he wants to give teachers back their professionalism, give students back their rights, and truly return the future of universities to everyone within them—so that problems from the early Republic era stop haunting student self-governance today.

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