Deputy defense minister for armament affairs General Chen Chao-ming (陳肇敏) and 19 other generals have been admitted into the first defense management class of the EMBA program at the National Taiwan University (NTU).
Chen, a former air force chief, is the only three-star general to enroll as a student of the program, which started accepting defense officials last year.
The EMBA program made the news last year after it accepted several two-star generals as students.
This year, NTU is to open a defense management class as part of its EMBA program. The class is the first of its kind to be opened only to defense officials.
A total of 32 generals applied for admission into the class but only 20 were accepted. The list of accepted generals, though not officially announced by the military, has been made public by the press.
One person on the list is Ministry of National Defense spokesman Major General Huang Sui-sheng (黃穗生). In a telephone interview with the Taipei Times, Huang explained the significance of the defense management class.
"The defense management class is to be opened according to an academic cooperation agreement signed between the National Defense University (NDU) and NTU in the middle of last year," Huang said.
"It is aimed at building channels of exchange between the military and civilians. It is the ministry's policy to offer more civilian posts in the ministry," he said.
"What's more important is that the ministry recognizes the need for military officials to learn new ideas from the civilian sector, especially those about management."
In the future, Huang said, the ministry will seek to have the armed forces operate according to management principles adopted by the civilian sector.
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