臺灣高等教育實施績效責任制度的困境與突破：代理人理論的應用

The Dilemma and Opportunity in the Accountability System of Taiwan Higher Education: The Application of Agency Theory

二十一世紀初臺灣高等教育政策受到新自由主義思潮的影響，令高等教育治理結構產生根本性的轉變。其中政府與大學之間的治理關係便是從原先的政府管制朝向契約關係，而在此基礎上建立的高等教育績效責任制度，企圖經由同時提升大學機構自主及促進校際競爭的策略，從成果端確保大學運作效率，提升整體公共服務品質。然而，近年來臺灣高等教育體系為了監管大學績效責任所發展的各項措施，卻逐漸脫離原先成果導向的管理精神，並出現妨害大學機構自主的問題。針對我國績效責任制度影響高等教育發展的討論，國內研究未曾以代理人理論觀點加以分析。基於此，本研究從近來英美高等教育領域倡議的「社會階層流動率」概念出發，提出當政府以競爭方式分配計畫預算，並作為委託人時應如何公正且客觀的評價大學社會績效責任。本研究在代理人理論的框架下，說明「資訊不對稱」與「誘因結構失衡」兩項導致代理兩難的原因，提出以大學貢獻社會階層流動率的程度，作為高等教育資源分配的基礎。最後建議政府主管機關改變行政數據應用的思維，重建大學誘因結構與績效責任制度。

In the early 21st century, Taiwan was affected by the popularity of neoliberalism and shifted higher education policy from governmental control to institutional autonomy. The current higher education accountability system, including university evaluation, performance-based funding and college ranking, have all aimed at granting more institutional autonomy to the higher education institution. However, the implementation of these instruments has intervened with the university's operation and goes against its original design. Although a lot of discussions have raised issues and questions about their side effects on the higher education mission, and only very few actions have been taken to replace the current evaluation system. The social mobility rate advocated in U.K. and U.S. proposed a new direction for the government to consider how to fairly and objectively evaluate the performance of the higher education institution in line with its mission. With the latter in mind, this paper refers to the agent theory, highlighting the informational asymmetric and goal conflicts which cause the agent-dilemma. This paper argues that the new resource allocation system based on the social mobility rate each higher education institution contributes could efficiently hold higher education institutions accountable while at the same time releasing them from unnecessary administrative intervention.