The Executive Yuan will not drop a plan to issue educational stipends to college graduates who are unemployed, Cabinet Spokesman Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said yesterday after the proposal came under fire by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
“The subsidies to support further educational training [for unemployed college graduates] will not be scrapped, but the name of the stipends may need to be changed,” Su told a press conference after the Cabinet’s weekly meeting yesterday morning.
Su said it was misleading to describe the subsidies as “educational vouchers.”
The stipends are part of the government’s policy to develop talent in research and development and to minimize the impact of the financial storm on students and others, he said.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has criticized the Cabinet for proposing on Monday to issue “educational training vouchers” to jobless university graduates.
Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) Chairman Chen Tain-jy (陳添枝) said on Monday that the Executive Yuan would spend NT$30 billion (US$890 million) of its NT$500 billion special budget on the stipends.
Su said on Tuesday the government would not make public the details of the proposal until it was closer to completion, but the Ministry of Education (MOE) said later that day that vouchers worth up to NT$10,000 would be granted to college graduates who had been jobless for at least three months.
The Chinese-language Apple Daily said yesterday that Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) had not wanted the CEPD and the MOE to make the plan public until the details had been finalized.
An anonymous Cabinet official was quoted as saying that the premier wanted the Government Information Office to “repackage” the policy.
But Su dismissed the report that the premier was dissatisfied with the MOE for announcing the policy and said the Executive Yuan would soon unveil more details.
Meanwhile, Su downplayed a report by Hong Kong-based brokerage CLSA that forecast minus 11 percent GDP growth for Taiwan this year.
“Different brokerages make different forecasts,” Su said.
CLSA predicted Taiwan would be Asia’s worst performer this year.
“We are highly confident of the government’s efforts to revive the economy. We will continue to push related policies and hope the nation also has confidence in the government,” he said.
“Compared with other countries ... our fundamentals, foreign reserves and savings all come out on top. Our moves to boost the economy will surely help revive the nation’s industries,” he said.
Also See: Council disputes negative economic outlook, sticks to GDP growth target
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