The legislature’s Budget Center (預算中心) criticized the government’s plan to allot almost NT$100 million of next year’s budget toward individual tuition subsidies for the children of Taiwanese businessmen in China.
The center said that the subsidy is illegal, and also unfair to the children of low income or otherwise disadvantaged families in Taiwan.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) introduced such subsidies in 2005, allowing NT$30,000 per elementary, junior and senior high school student per year and NT$10,000 per kindergarten student per year, while elementary and junior high school students in Taiwan and in the six overseas Taiwanese schools outside of China received no such subsidies.
For the years between 2005 and next year, the government has allotted almost NT$330 million to this subsidy, increasing it from NT$25 million in 2005 to NT$94 million for next year, an increase of NT$12 million from last year’s NT$82 million.
In a report, the Budget Center said that according to regulations in the Statute Governing Relations Between Peoples Of The Taiwan Area And The Mainland Area and legislation governing the establishment of Taiwanese schools by Taiwanese businesspeople in China, the MOE should direct its subsidies to schools, while individual students should only be given scholarships, grants or group student insurance, but not tuition fees.
The above budget item is aimed at individual tuition subsidies, and that is not in compliance with the law.
The Budget Center also raised fairness concerns, saying that government subsidies for children aged five or older attending private kindergartens abroad are restricted to educational vouchers worth NT$10,000, while there are no tuition fee subsidies for elementary and junior high school students, and students in senior high, vocational and community schools only receive NT$10,000 per year.
The center stressed that students in the six overseas schools set up to support the government’s “go south” policy did not receive individual tuition subsidies, and that in the interest of fair use of educational resources, the individual tuition that went to children of Taiwanese businesspeople in China must be “reviewed” unless the law is changed.
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