The National Taiwan Normal University was under fire yesterday from lawmakers who demanded an immediate dismissal of its president for what they called lying and forgery of his credentials.
The Ministry of Education on Sunday decided to impose a month-long suspension of the university's president, Huang Kuan-tsae (黃光彩), but Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Justin Chou (周守訓) and People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lee Yung-ping (李永萍) yesterday called for a more strict punishment.
"The ministry's decision does not solve the problem," Chou said. "Huang not only is unqualified for the job, but also has lied and fabricated his credentials."
PHOTO: CHEN TSE-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Huang, who asked for two-weeks leave yesterday so the the ministry could conduct its investigation, said that there is nothing wrong with his credentials.
The university president, however, said that he will accept the ministry's final decision.
In addition to demanding Huang's immediate dismissal, Chou said Education Minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) should step down to so he does not try to protect Huang, who Chou claimed enjoys a close relationship with with the minister. Chou also demanded the education ministry to conduct an investigation into the matter and the university find a replacement for Huang as soon as possible or to face a freeze of its annual budget.
According to Chou, Huang got the job not because of his qualifications, but because of his close relationship with Tu.
"Huang has never taught a day in his life nor obtained any teaching qualifications," Chou said. "He got the job simply because he knows some government big shots."
Chou also alleged that Huang lied about his work experience. He also said Huang claimed that he served as the "director" of the Institute of Systems Science at the National University of Singapore from 1989 to 1993.
However, according to the KMT legislator, a letter from the president of the University of the Singapore addressed to Tu last November indicated that Huang was the institute's "program manager" and that he was no longer with the institute as of 1992, when he was appointed president of SingaLab Pte Ltd, a private laboratory with joint projects with IBM Development Labs.
While a book coauthored by Huang and used as a proof of his qualifications for his promotion application was published in 1998, Chou said that Huang lied about the publication date and claimed that it was published in 1999.
In response, the education ministry yesterday promised an investigative team would be sent to the University of Singapore to collect first-hand information on the matter.
In related developments, a Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) lawmaker yesterday accused National Taiwan University (NTU) of sheltering one of its associate professors, who was suspected of plagiarism in one of the articles she used for her promotion last year.
TSU Legislator Tseng Tsan-teng (
Although the university has dismissed such a charge, Liu Wen-huei (劉文惠), an official with the education ministry's Council of Academic Review and Evaluation, yesterday said he would urge the university conduct another investigation into Tseng's allegations.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching