台灣地區高等教育學生「職業與其教育不相稱」之探討

Abstract

The number of students who majored in the field of science and technology has been gradually growing in recent years in Taiwan. However, a report revealed by Manpower (2008) suggested that Taiwanese employers had difficulty in recruiting information technology (IT) staff. This seems to indicate an existing gap between the needs in industry and the higher education systems. And this gap might result from the mismatch between education and employment. Thus, the purpose of the study is to examine the phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education in terms of bachelor’s and master’s graduates who majored in the engineering and technology. In this study, the data collected by Taiwan Higher Education Database was utilized, and the sample was restricted to the graduates majored mathematics and computation. According to the statistical results, it was confirmed that a phenomenon of mismatch between employment and education exists. Additionally, the bachelor’s graduates were found to be more likely to be mismatched between job and major, whereas the master’s graduates were found to be more likely to be overeducated in terms of the additional years of overeducation. Therefore, the reason why the Taiwanese companies had difficulty in recruiting IT staff could be inferred. Because of the distrust of the ability of bachelor’s graduates, the companies would rather recruit the candidate with master degree if a job requires a bachelor degree. When the companies raise the qualification standard, they face the problem to recruit people who can match their positions. And the bachelor’s graduates might turn to seek other employment position, if they could not gain the jobs related to their majors.