A group of Taiwanese graduates and students from schools in China and their parents demonstrated outside the Ministry of Education yesterday, calling the ministry’s plan to not recognize Chinese credentials obtained before the passage of several proposed amendments “discriminatory.”
Chen Cheng-teng (陳正騰), vice chairman of the Taiwan Students Union, told a press conference that the ministry’s plan was unacceptable to Taiwanese students studying in China.
“We have worked really hard [in China] but we are treated this way after returning to Taiwan. How are we supposed to accept that?” Chen said.
Jeff Chao (趙世聰), who has a master’s in law from Peking University, said the students wanted to be treated like “other Taiwanese citizens,” adding that they are not asking for preferential treatment.
“We attend school in China not because we do not love Taiwan. We can attend school in China and still come back to contribute to Taiwan,” Chao said.
The demonstrators were reacting to Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng’s (鄭瑞城) announcement on May 4 that although the government is planning to recognize Chinese credentials, this will not apply retroactively.
If the legislature approves the amendments proposed by the ministry, Taiwanese students or Chinese spouses who obtained their credentials from schools in China prior to the passage will not be able to use them.
Cheng Hsio-feng (鄭秀鳳), whose daughter is doing an internship at a hospital in China and preparing for examinations for a medical license in China, said the ministry should not discriminate against the students.
Cheng said it would be wrong for the ministry to punish the students for studying in China before the government officially recognized Chinese diplomas, because the ministry never imposed a ban on students studying in China.
“Studying in China is the same as studying in any foreign country. Students can choose to study abroad, so why can’t my child choose to study in China?” Cheng said.
In response, Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰), a section chief at the ministry’s Department of Higher Education who received the protesters’ plea on behalf of the ministry, said the ministry had not finalized the regulations.
Chu promised to communicate the protesters’ complaints to his superiors.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching