Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji (吳清基) expressed his pride in the country’s vocational education system yesterday and anticipated that junior college vocational schools around the nation would be “stuffed” with Chinese students once they are allowed to enroll in Taiwan’s colleges and universities.
“Taiwanese schools are attractive enough to draw Chinese students,” Wu said at the 44th founding anniversary of Meiho Institute of Technology in Pingtung County.
Taiwan’s vocational education is globally recognized as being of the same quality as that in Germany and Australia, Wu said, saying that National Pingtung University of Science and Technology’s Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation is the only school of its kind in the world.
Taichung City-based National Chung Hsing University enjoys a reputation on a par with Japan’s prestigious University of Tokyo in agricultural and biotech research, he said.
Wu said he believes academic exchanges between Taiwan and China will help further ease political tensions, but he also said that safeguards are in place to prevent Chinese students from seizing education resources from local students, as some fear.
The safeguards include restrictions on the number of Chinese students allowed to enter Taiwan, not offering scholarships to Chinese students and prohibiting Chinese students from staying in the country to work after they finish their studies, the minister said.
The ministry has begun a series of 17 separate public hearings around the country on the policy to open its doors to Chinese students and recognize academic credentials from Chinese universities.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
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