Chinese students who come to Taiwan for short-term research and study will soon be granted six more months of stay, Vice Minister of Education Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳) said yesterday.
At a press conference after briefing Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄), Lu said Chinese students would be allowed to stay in Taiwan for a maximum of one year after the ministry amended regulations.
The policy may take effect in the winter break next February at the earliest, Lu said.
The policy is one of the ministry’s four main goals to broaden cross-strait academic exchanges.
The other three objectives include allowing Chinese students to obtain degrees in Taiwan; gradually recognizing Chinese diplomas and allowing Taiwanese universities to offer continuing education and degree programs for students with full-time jobs in China.
“These are very good policies ... some of them may begin in October or November while policies that require more planning or [cross-strait] negotiation may be executed in January or February next year,” Liu told reporters.
As for the recognition of diplomas from universities in China, Lu said a ministry-level task force was still deliberating the criteria for recognition.
Meanwhile, Liu asked the ministry to discuss the possibility of requiring all high school seniors to take a joint exam before they graduate. It would serve as a threshold to manage the quality of high school graduates.
The suggestion came after the ministry proposed plans to help universities set admission and graduation thresholds for students.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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