2019 Higher Education Sprout Project Performance –
National Taiwan Normal University
The National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) is committed to the pursuit of academic excellence, having been established on the notion that education is the foundation of our nation, and this commitment is characterized by the many influential educators and researchers that have been nurtured here over the years.
In this context, NTNU has met the goals regarding Higher Education Sprout Project, including several important performance metrics:
Interdisciplinary Approach.
To encourage interdisciplinary learning, NTNU had strived to create an interdisciplinary learning approach (e.g., lowering the number of required credits for majors, perfecting the mechanism for double majors, integrating university learning resources, creating interdisciplinary or integrative credit programs). The percentage of students in interdisciplinary learning has increased from 40% in 2017 to 56.4% in 2019. Moreover, NTNU has established excellent interdisciplinary R&D teams, comprehensive laboratories integrating software and hardware, and a high-quality environment combining R&D, testing, marketing, as well as cross-university multinational research circles that share high-end research equipment and resources. For example, NTNU signed an MOU with Haskins Laboratories from Yale in 2019 for the establishment of NTNU-Haskins Joint Laboratory of Brain Development and Learning, allowing for more outstanding scholars to be linked together.
Training Teachers for Bilingual Education for IB Schools Worldwide.
As a leader in the cultivation of teachers in Taiwan, NTNU spares no effort in cultivating educational talents. With a rigorous teacher training system that has been practiced for years, combined with the spirit of International Baccalaureate (IB), we expect to nurture excellent bilingual teachers to progress the education in Taiwan towards a new direction. NTNU was authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization in January 2018 as the first IB school for teacher's education in Taiwan. Currently there are two variants, International Education and International Chinese as a Second Language. With the internationally recognized IBEC program, NTNU continues to implement the system of teacher’s training. Every IB student will have an exclusive IB account that can be used to acquire the latest IB educational development and resources and connects with 6,453 educators at 4,964 IB schools in 153 countries around the world. The teachers and students can learn from global IB education and teacher practice to reflect and optimize their teaching philosophy. Secondly, we invited world known education experts and senior IB educators from overseas to hold a series of IB education workshops and seminars. In addition to pre-school teachers at NTNU, we also invited domestic primary and secondary IB school teachers to participate in the training to establish a good teaching community and build a quality education environment. The University of British Colombia, a sister school of NTNU, also has an International Baccalaureate (IB) Teacher Education Program. We are working on a collaboration project for current teachers who are interested in IB teaching.
Education of NTNU ranked 31st in QS World University Rankings by Subject 2020.
The latest QS World University Rankings by Subject was announced by Quacquarelli Symonds on March 5th. Three subjects from NTNU are within the top 100 in the world, they are Library and Information Management, ranked at 50th, Education ranked at 31st and Linguistics ranked at 51~100. This is an embodiment of NTNU’s work on global competitiveness and cross disciplinary collaboration. Traditional subject matter is reinforced with the latest technology, making NTNU an academically rigorous institution.
In the future, NTNU will continue to strive to achieve even higher levels of educational and academic excellence and establish the finest campus environment for learning and research. For the benefit of society and posterity, NTNU will continue to cultivate leading talent and improve the construction of campus.
