Maintaining high school education when the number of students is decreasing is challenging in many respects. When education was expanding, the primary concern was to cope with the growing quantitative demand. However, when education is being downsized, providing adequate education involves dealing with problems that are both quantitative and qualitative. The challenge is to downsize education while guaranteeing equal opportunities for everyone. To examine this issue, we focus on education providers in Japan and Taiwan.
These societies have several common features regarding upper secondary education. First, both experienced rapid expansion, and now, arguably, almost every child goes to high school. Second, private schools provide a considerable amount of opportunities because of the historical background of both countries. The limited public provision in the face of rising demand created a gap, which private schools bridged. Consequently, in both societies, private high schools are slightly semi-public in nature, unlike those in the West. In Japan, public and private schools determined the allocation of entrants before examinations in Public-Private Cooperation Councils. Thus, private schools maintained a certain quota for many years, and kept the ratio of private high students stable over fifty years. In Taiwan, low academic achievers from poor households go to private vocational high schools, which are at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Now, these societies are facing a drop in the number of students which affects the structure of high school provision. In Japan, the function of the Public-Private Cooperation Council might be changing due to this decline. The size of the market has shrunk too much and with the allocation system, private schools, in particular, have not been able to finance the administration of their schools. Since each private school operates independently with separate educational institutions, it is not easy to integrate and abolish schools in a planned manner as public schools have done. Moreover, in some prefectures, the public place a “special consideration” on private high schools. It is true that this is, in a sense, “protection of the private sector” for it deprives students of the opportunity to go to public high schools. In addition, this problem leaves the role of private high schools indistinct, and private high schools have to find a niche to survive in the shrinking market without any guiding principles.
In Taiwan, the Twelve-Year Basic Education Policy was launched in 2014. This policy practically extended citizen education from nine years to twelve years. It has also sought to promote educational goals such as raising educational quality and realizing equal opportunities. As we have seen, to ensure various educational opportunities means keeping private vocational high schools. However, support for narrowing the gap between public and private schools is given to individual students in the form of enrollment choices. Marketization will work if the size of the market is large enough. However, the Twelve-Year Basic Education Policy also seeks the localization of education by encouraging students to attend their nearest schools. The size of the market is already too small for the marketization mechanism to work in rural areas, where depopulation is a serious problem.
生徒減少期の高校教育機会の確保には，量的不足への対応が求められた拡大期とは異なる位相の問題が孕まれている。この局面では準義務教育機関となった高校に求められる質的に多様なニーズを満たしつつも規模を縮小させることが必要となるからである。本研究は，同じく生徒数の減少に直面しつつある日本，台湾を事例として取り上げ，高校教育機会を維持し続けること，そこで浮かび上がってくる課題について公私関係を軸に検討する。
日台ともに公立高校の供給不足を私立高校が補完して高校拡大が達成されたため，私立高校はセミ・パブリックな性質を持つようになった。加えて，日本では都道府県に公私協議会を設置して入学定員の按分が行われてきた。それは量的変動のショックを負担し合うことで教育機会の安定的な供給に寄与した。しかし，生徒数が減少し続ける中，定員の按分方式では私立高校の経営が維持できなくなる事態が生じつつある。一方，台湾では2014年の「十二年国民基本教育」実施に伴い，義務教育が実質的に高校まで延長された。この政策は教育機会の平準化や質の均質化を目指すものであるが，少子化の進行，地域間格差などの現実に即したものではない。特に地方で私立職業高校の存続を難しくし，政策の意図とは裏腹に教育機会の平等が担保されない事態が生まれつつある。両社会とも縮小局面で，私立高校の役割をふまえ機会の平等をどう保障していくかが問われている。