The Joint Board of College Recruitment Commission has established that the General Scholastic Ability Test (GSAT, generally regarded as the university and college entrance exam in Taiwan) will be made ‘optional’ for university and college admission from 2019 onwards, with number of core subjects tested reduced from five to four. GSAT is held in January and is currently compulsory in order for students in Taiwan progressing onto local HEIs. Each GSAT subject is graded 0 to 15, with no subjects less than 1 being accepted.   

Given that some students who are talented in subjects such as Arts and Sports may be underrepresented in terms of GSAT results, the board has also concluded that GSAT candidates with a single subject with a score of less than 1 will be eligible for university entry. Students now in grade 12 will be the first cohort to apply for entry into the academic year 2018 under the new system. 

Although moving from an exam-based education to a student-centred learning and teaching model has always been the first priority of the reform, a no GSAT or low/zero GSAT score approach might be taken by some private universities as a ‘backdoor’ to fill student recruitment gaps, which in return may further aggravate the problem around skills shortage of skilled university graduates, according to media interviews of local universities. The Board clarified that only a few programmes rely purely on non-GSAT assessment (e.g. interview/audition), most universities in Taiwan should therefore remain unaffected. Universities who worry about student quality have been advised to take sensible measures in terms of entry requirements for the academic year 2018.

From local parents and schools’ perspective, the reform would release study pressure to some extent so that students have opportunities to focus on subjects they are interested and doing better at.

Commentary

Universities in Germany, Hong Kong and China take GSAT results as part of entry requirements but this is much less the case with UK universities and pathway providers. These mainly use average senior high school grades as the benchmark, when being considered for international foundation year or other pathway programmes.   

But the reform could mean a greater mixture of student quality for postgraduate recruitment. An average 75% score from a national university may not be necessarily comparable to an 80% score from a non-top tier university, and the gap in grade equivalences between different types of institutions may widen further in the future.