The Ministry of Education’s policy to reduce the number of military instructors nationwide remains unchanged, Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) said yesterday, while the justice minister admitted to accidentally telling universities to hire government ethics personnel.
During a question-and-answer session of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee, Cheng said the ministry decided at an administrative meeting on Oct. 23 not to fill vacancies for military instructors at universities for the next three years.
Cheng said statistics showed there were about 1,388 military instructors on university campuses and that this figure would drop by about 100 each year.
There will be around 690 military instructors left at colleges in three years time, he said.
But he said the ministry would not cut the number of military instructors at high schools because they play a role in student safety.
The ministry has sought to reduce the number of military instructors at universities since the term of former education minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), who considered their presence on campuses inappropriate.
The presence of military instructors at high schools and universities dates back to the 1950s, when they were responsible for students’ military training, discipline and political education.
They are now generally tasked with ensuring campus safety. Those at high schools are also responsible for student discipline, counseling and military training courses.
Cheng acknowledge the instructors’ role in campus safety, but said that some of their duties, such as counseling, should be taken over by professionals trained for those tasks.
When asked for comment, National Taiwan University president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔), who also attended yesterday’s meeting, said that military instructors played an important role in campus security, but that they should not remain a part of university faculty in the long run.
But Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) and Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) disagreed.
They urged the ministry not to “force military instructors out” simply to follow the ideology of the former Democratic Progressive Party government.
In related news, Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said no ethics personnel would be assigned to campuses or government offices.
“It was a misunderstanding. I assure you that such a thing will not happen,” Wang told the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee.
The issue was highlighted when the Ethics Affairs Department issued notices to schools suggesting that all schools and government offices assign ethics personnel. The proposal was criticized as a return to the Martial Law era, when ethics staff were used to collect information for the government.
Wang said it was a misunderstanding, adding that she had “signed the document by mistake.”
Wang said the ministry wanted to assign people as campus contacts to provide information about government policies and help schools with legalities concerning their financial declarations.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JIMMY CHUANG
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Taiwan’s three major international carriers are increasing booking fees, with EVA Airways having already increased the charge to US$28 per flight segment from US$25, while China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines are set to follow suit. Booking fees are charged by airlines through a global distribution system (GDS) and passed on to passengers. Carriers that apply the fees include CAL, EVA, Starlux and Tigerair Taiwan. A GDS is a computerized network operated by a company that connects airlines with travel agents and ticketing platforms, allowing reservations to be made and processed in real time. Major players include Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport. EVA Air began
The Ministry of National Defense yesterday reported the return of large-scale Chinese air force activities after their unexplained absence for more than two weeks, which had prompted speculation regarding Beijing’s motives. China usually sends fighter jets, drones and other military aircraft around the nation on a daily basis. Interruptions to such routine are generally caused by bad weather. The Ministry of National Defense said it had detected 26 Chinese military aircraft in the Taiwan Strait over the previous 24 hours. It last reported that many aircraft on Feb. 25, when it spotted 30 aircraft, saying Beijing was carrying out another “joint combat
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
RSS