Dozens of members of the Alliance of Angry Youths — mostly college and graduate students — staged a demonstration outside the Ministry of Education in Taipei yesterday to protest a possible raise in tuition. The alliance also urged the ministry to cancel interest on student loans.
Earlier, the ministry had announced that it would announce a “range for college tuition adjustments” tomorrow.
Although director of the ministry’s Department of Higher Education Ho Chuo-fei (何卓飛) told the students that a “tuition adjustment” did not necessarily mean an increase in fees, but could also mean a decrease, the demonstrators were not convinced, especially after Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng’s (鄭瑞城) interview with local news channel TVBS that was broadcast on Monday.
During the interview, Cheng said that college tuition would have to be raised this year, adding that “our college tuition isn’t too expensive” compared with most countries, including neighboring countries.
“I’m from a single-parent family, and I’m paying almost NT$40,000 each semester for tuition,” said Chen Chien-ming (陳建名), a National Tsinghua University student.
The demonstrators all wore white T-shirts with the Chinese characters for “anger” written on the shirts in red.
“Throughout my four years of college, I’ll pay a total of NT$200,000, and my sister, who is attending a private university, will pay a total of NT$400,000,” he said.
“The government says that college tuition should be decided by the market — so why do we need the government?” Chen said.
“Education should be a basic right for everyone, and those who are economically disadvantaged should not be excluded,” said Tseng Tsung-kai (曾琮愷), another member of the alliance.
Not satisfied with Ho’s explanation, the students decided to sit down in front of the ministry “until the minister comes talk to us,” Tseng said.
After around half an hour, deputy minister Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) appeared.
“We’ve heard your voices,” Lu told the demonstrators. “I promise that there will not only be tuition raises, but also decreases — I will ask the review committee to consider all the options [before announcing it on Friday].”
With the deputy minister’s promise, the students finally left, but said that they would be back tomorrow if the ministry did not live up to its promises.
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