Taihoku Higher School (now National Taiwan Normal University)

Taihoku Higher School (台北高等学校, Taihoku Kōtō Gakkō) was established in 1922 as the Taiwan Governor-General's Higher School (台湾総督府高等学校), the only higher school in colonial Taiwan and one of 38 such elite institutions across the Japanese Empire. Higher schools occupied a critical tier in Japan's prewar educational system: they were the three-year preparatory academies that fed directly into imperial universities, making them the decisive bottleneck in the path to elite status. For Taiwanese students under colonial rule, Taihoku Higher School represented the sole institutional pathway to higher education and social advancement.

The school initially borrowed facilities from Taihoku First Middle School before relocating in 1926 to a purpose-built campus in the Koteicho (古亭町) district — present-day Da'an District, Taipei. In 1927 it was officially renamed Taihoku Higher School Under the Government-General of Taiwan (台湾総督府台北高等学校). The campus featured Neo-Classical and Gothic Revival architecture designed to project the prestige of Japanese imperial education. Several of these buildings survive today, including the Administration Building, Lecture Hall (now the NTNU Auditorium), Wenhui Hall, and the Pu Building (普字樓), all designated as a Taipei municipal monument under the name "Former Higher School Buildings of National Taiwan Normal University."

The school offered a rigorous seven-year program — four years of general studies followed by three years of advanced liberal arts or science coursework — modeled on the German Gymnasium system. The curriculum emphasized foreign languages, philosophy, literature, and the sciences. Both Japanese and Taiwanese students attended, though the admissions process was heavily tilted in favor of Japanese applicants. The ordinary course admitted about 40 pupils a year, and Taiwanese were a small minority at every level; future president Lee Teng-hui, who entered the higher course in 1941, is said to have been one of only four Taiwanese in a class of about forty. Graduates were guaranteed admission to Taihoku Imperial University (now National Taiwan University) without entrance examinations, and many went on to imperial universities in Japan proper.

During the Pacific War, the school's academic mission was increasingly subordinated to wartime mobilization. Students participated in military drills, labor service, and civil defense activities. As American air raids intensified over Taiwan in 1944-1945, normal academic life was severely disrupted. The school's students and facilities were drawn into the broader mobilization of colonial Taiwan's human and material resources for the war effort.

Following Japan's defeat in August 1945, the Republic of China assumed control of Taiwan. Taihoku Higher School was renamed Taiwan Provincial Taipei High School (台灣省立臺北高級中學) in October 1945 and graduated its final class in 1949 before being dissolved under the new Chinese educational system. In 1946, Taiwan Provincial Teachers' College was established on the same campus, which evolved through several name changes — Taiwan Provincial Normal University (1955) and finally National Taiwan Normal University (1967) — into one of Taiwan's most prestigious universities.

Today, the NTNU main campus at 162 Heping East Road Section 1 preserves the architectural legacy of Taihoku Higher School. The colonial-era buildings, with their distinctive red brick facades, arched windows, and European-influenced design, stand as some of the finest surviving examples of Japanese colonial educational architecture in Taiwan. The university maintains an archives and museum collection documenting its origins as Taihoku Higher School, and the campus serves as a living reminder of the complex educational and cultural legacy of Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan.