A Case Study of Preschool Education Vouchers in Taiwan: A Policy Change Perspective

• Main Authors: CHIANG, TZU-AN, 姜姿安
• Other Authors: LIN, SHU-HSIN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5hpcmw

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 公共行政暨政策學系 === 107 === The aim of this article is to apply the perspective of policy change to analyze the influential context of changing preschool education vouchers policy. This article seeks to describe the implementation process of preschool education vouchers policy (the first change), and explore the main factors for preschool education vouchers policy evolving to free tuition plan for five-year-old children policy (the second change). Besides, this article conducts both secondary data analysis and in-depth interview to collect data. The results reveal that, firstly, the first change is a type of paradigmatic pattern and policy innovation, and the second change is a type of normal pattern and policy succession. Secondly, theoretical framework can partly explain the causes of the second change. Only if researchers concern about the specific factors of early childhood education in Taiwan, including (a) the relatively stable parameters indirectly affect the external factors, (b) five external factors are not independent, (c) existing policy not only affects the external factors, but also places restrictions on decision-making of the Ministry of Education, (d) the media plays the role of conduit, but does not play an active actor in the policy subsystem, and (e) focusing events are not key factors for driving policy change, can researchers construct a theoretical framework that can properly explain the second change of preschool education vouchers policy. In conclusion, this article provides some policy recommendations to the Ministry of Education. In the short term, the Ministry of Education should exert on controllable factors, such as playing a role of policy broker in coordination, seizing the moment of agenda setting, and providing opportunities for participants to dialogue and participate in decision-making. In the long term, the Ministry of Education should exert on factors that are difficult to change in short time, such as enhancing autonomy by gradually adjusting the relatively stable parameters, learning to act as a competent policy broker, and always beware of the fact that politics is everywhere.