Selection Determinants In Education Major Graduates Occupations

Abstract

Taiwan’s teacher training system currently faces a serious disorder. The excessive number of teacher education programs being set up in universities by the Ministry of Education has dramatically increased the number of teachers. The situation, coupled with the country of low birth rate and high retirement age, brings about fewer teaching vacancies than the number of available teachers. The over-expansion of universities has resulted in a situation that almost every secondary school graduate can access higher education institutions, which subsequently produce a great number of graduates, far exceeding the vacancies in the workplace. This plus with the recent economic recession intensifies competition among individuals hunting for jobs. Thus, it is imperative to identify the ideal jobs for graduates, and the first step is figuring out the main determinants for selecting jobs and the relative importance of these determinants. A self-developed questionnaire was administered to 200 education major graduates in Taiwan. The result indicated that high job stability was perceived to be the most important factor among participants. Also, the education students considered school teacher or administrator to be the ideal jobs.