Five-Year Junior College Programs

The five-year junior college program, entered after graduation from junior middle school, has in the past been considered equivalent to high school plus one or two years of college, with only the last two years of work equivalent to college level. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly common for graduates of these programs to claim that some of the courses they took in the first three years were at the college level. In a few cases, these claims have been backed by the colleges themselves, but in others they have not. Thus, it is important to check such claims directly with the institution.

A graduate of such a program will not possess a high school diploma; he/she will only have a junior college diploma. If the student does not complete the entire five-year junior college program, he or she will have neither a high school diploma nor a junior college diploma; only a transcript and perhaps a certificate, stating that he or she departed under normal circumstances, will be available.

These institutions have been attractive to students and their families because of the fact that they do not require the student to take another grueling entrance exam after three years of high school, and because of their practical nature (they are part of the vocational education track).

Some of the most outstanding of the five-year junior colleges have recently been upgraded to four-year, bachelor degree-granting institutions, in some cases retaining their junior college programs. For example, the National Taipei Institute of Technology still exists as a junior college, but has also been "upgraded" as a four-year institution called "National Taipei University of Science and Technology." Both are at the same address; but in one publication of the MOE, the "University" is said to have been "upgraded" in 1997, while in the other it is said to have been "established" in 1997.

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