After a six-hour meeting, the National Taiwan University (NTU) election committee yesterday decided to ratify the election of NTU president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔).
Kuan’s election has been controversial, because he has been accused of breaching research ethics and his position as an independent director of Taiwan Mobile (台灣大哥大) could be a conflict of interest.
The university said it forwarded information to the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Science and Technology showing that Kuan has no record of ethics breaches.
Photo: CNA
While NTU had hoped that the MOE would expedite Kuan’s approval, the ministry asked it to convene the election committee and clarify the matters in question.
It is not the committee’s place to say whether the result would have been different if Kuan had made his position at Taiwan Mobile known, it said.
Regarding the plagiarism accusation, the committee said it would respect the NTU Research Ethics Office’s decision that Kuan’s paper was not an official academic thesis and therefore should not be subjected to plagiarism standards.
The committee said it had observed all voting procedures, adding that it would issue a formal notice to the MOE of Kuan’s approval.
Committee convener Chen Wei-chao (陳維昭) said the public was aware of the decision as of Jan. 5.
However, the university opted to abide by MOE, Legislative Yuan and Control Yuan requests to convene the committee and clarify matters, Chen said, adding that all members attended the meeting.
“We hope Kuan can be sworn in today,” Chen said.
MOE Department of Personnel Director Chen Kun-yuan (陳焜元) said as of press time last night that the department had yet to receive the documents.
All official documents must be passed between the MOE’s Department of Legal Affairs and the K-12 Education Administration, so Kuan would not be able to be sworn in today, Chen Kun-yuan said, adding that the ministry is compelled to accept the results of the meeting.
The MOE is not concerned with the timing of when the procedures are completed, he added.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS