Former president Lee Teng-hui (
"I congratulate you all on your good work," Lee told the scholarship recipients. "And I hope you will continue to keep up the good work and diligence in your education."
The 74 students were the recipients of the First Annual Aboriginal Scholarship, sponsored by the Lee and Lien Education Foundation (李連教育基金會).
Named after Lee and KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
In accordance with the Election and Recall Law governing presidents and vice presidents, candidates winning more than one-third of the vote in an election are entitled to an NT$30-per-vote refund on campaign costs. Lee and Lien got NT$170 million after obtaining 5,810,000 votes in the 1996 election. They used this money to create the foundation, with the aim of providing aid to students in need.
Lien was unable to attend yesterday's event as he is on a 15-day trip to the US.
The foundation offers both merit-based and needs-based awards in three categories: high school, college and graduate school.
Forty students in the high school category were each awarded NT$10,000, 20 college students received NT$15,000 each and 14 graduate students received NT$20,000 each.
"Issues concerning Aborigine education are far more pressing than building roads, constructing buildings and things like that," Lee said.
"All teachers should think about this and consider going to the mountainous areas to teach Aborigines," he said, referring to the fact that most of Taiwan's 400,000 Aborigines live in scattered settlements in the mountains of eastern and southeastern Taiwan.
According to statistics provided by Taipei City Government's Council of Aboriginal Affairs, only 60 percent of Aborigines graduate from junior high school and the proportion of Aborigines graduating from university is far below that of other ethnic groups.
RSS