Abstract
With advance medical care system and highly development of the society, sophisticated elderly care in Taiwan prolong the average life span of Taiwanese people. By the end of 2009, according to the MoI research data, people over 65-year of age has reached 2.4 million and was at about 10.7% of its total population. The marriage and birth rate are consistently falling in Taiwan, many younger people choose not to have children due to heavy financial pressure, and some of them will get married late. Taiwanese currently has the lowest birth rate in the world and such reasons might worsen the situation. Currently, the population structure in Taiwan has already reached the 4th stage of Demographic Transition of aging with very low birth and death rate, the situation is in no doubts has brought a significant impact in economic, medical care and family relationship to the society. The aging population structure is an achievement of a highly developed society but it has also posted a challenge to such society and to the government. Researchers have done many studies and presented many solutions to better respond to the unstoppable impacts, that includes postpone the retirement, encourage child birth, improve the health care system, encourage the elderly retirement activities, stimulate the social bond to the elderly and attendance to the education system. For all these solutions, how to prepare an elderly person in facing the aging society by an educational way might be considered a much more important solution. Many studies are focusing on issues in elderly care, leisure activities and social attendance instead of education. This study is based on the theory of Productive Aging and Active Aging in extend to education. We are trying to find out how Taiwanese elderly looking at continuing education, their needs and willingness of receiving the education near and after their retirement. We are trying find out how government policies, social institutions, elderly people and their families are facing the fast aging Taiwanese society? This study randomly picks up 56 retired or near retired people at the age of over 55 from north, center and south part of Taiwan. We will perform the “in depth interview”, “in depth observation”, “behavior observation” and with “official data mining” as methods of study. We are then trying to find out if there is a new service model in elderly education by research in elderly life style, economic situation, economic reproductive and willingness on rejoin in social production. This study found out the willingness of Taiwanese elderly in attending the continuing education programs has a lot to do with their health, financial situation and education level. And we found out more active elderly are living a healthier life style either mentally or physically. More over, many colleges in Taiwan are facing problems of finding new students due to the low birth rates. We could turn these problem colleges into institutions that offer continuing education for older people. And this would provide solutions for 1. Survival of some colleges, teachers and faculties; 2. Provide opportunities and places for lifelong study for elderly; 3. Preserve the experiences and special techniques of elderly and last to provide the extra productivities to the sociality.