INTRODUCTION

Taiwan, an island in the South China Sea has a total area of 22,214 sq. km, and a population of 23 million. According to per capita income it ranks thirty-fourth in the world. Within 40 years it has rapidly developed from a predominantly agricultural to a highly industrialized economy. Education has played an important role in transforming its economy and society.

The Portuguese in the fourteenth century called Taiwan ‘Isla Formosa’ or ‘beautiful island’. Formosa later came to be known as Taiwan meaning ‘terraced bay’. In AD 1626, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) or the Dutch East India Company captured Keelung and subsequently Tansui in AD 1629. The Dutch organized labour, created mines and plantations and introduced new crops and tools. Taiwan became a cog in the wheel of international commerce stretching from Nagasaki to the Netherlands. The records of the VOC contain interesting letters sent from Batavia on the role of Taiwan as an entrepôt for the exchange of gold, silk and ceramics. The Dutch also took upon themselves the responsibility of ‘civilizing’ the aborigines through conversion to Christianity. During the Dutch rule, many missionaries educated the Taiwanese natives, and it can be said that the Dutch were the first to introduce some kind of an organized system of education in Taiwan.