In 2019, the new 12-year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines were officially adopted. In line with the new standards and regulations, senior high schools are required to offer elective courses which give students an opportunity to explore their own interests. These courses can also be included in academic portfolios submitted for written reviews in the context of future university applications. However, the provision of sufficient teaching resources for diversified course offering suited to the needs of students represents a significant challenge for the schools. In response to this predicament, Chun-Hua Tang, an associate professor of the Department of Finance, used his expertise to help many senior high schools in the development of relevant elective courses.

Tang points out that senior high school teachers lack expertise in financial management and it may therefore be advisable for some schools to seek external support by enlisting university faculty members to serve as instructors for relevant courses. However, numerous objective conditions must be considered to ensure the feasibility of such plans. For instance, long commuting times tend to hamper the hiring of university instructors by schools in remote areas or there may be a significant gap between contents of courses planned by internal instructors and educational directions of university departments. Against this backdrop, Professor Tang personally visited many senior high schools to gain a better understanding of their educational approaches and demand. He also developed a lesson plan for an elective course in financial management taught by senior high school teachers.

The plan included the importance of wealth management, interest rate, deposit, and exchange rate tips, key terms related to stocks, major international stock indexes, ROI and risks associated with stock investments, use of data in financial statements for the selection of stocks, dividends and deposit stocks, exchange-traded funds, and dollar-cost averaging investment strategies. The goal is to make it easy for senior high school teachers to learn basic finance. Since the beginning of this year, Tang has visited nine senior high schools in middle and southern Taiwan. Several schools have partially or fully adopted his lesson plan. Students could thus only not learn some basics of finance management, but also able to assess whether they wish to pursue careers in this field.

The Department of Finance relies on its professional expertise in finance to provide educational resources for diversified elective courses offered at senior high schools with the ultimate goal of enhancing the teaching quality and bridging the urban-rural gap which results in unequal opportunities in education. In the future, the College of Management will continue to share educational experiences in professional fields with senior high schools by relying on its faculty in business and information management.