A professor yesterday urged university instructors to encourage Taiwanese college students to interact with international students in a bid to change their attitude toward learning and improve their English proficiency.
Li Chen-ching (李振清), a professor at Shih Hsin University’s Department of English, told the annual Joint College Administrator Meeting yesterday that local students could learn from their international counterparts’ thirst for knowledge when studying or doing research alongside foreign students.
Li, who delivered a speech on strategies and measures to improve the internationalization efforts of local universities, said the practice should begin right after students enter university — a time he described as the “enlightenment stage.”
College teachers across the nation should also be fully prepared to teach all courses in English, Li said, adding that English is a global language spoken by people from all walks of life.
Ministry of Education statistics showed that the number of international students pursuing academic degrees or visiting Taiwan as exchange students or for short-term study in the current academic year had reached 22,366 — an increase of 2,870 compared with last year.
Meanwhile, the ministry said it planned to punish professors whose graduate students were found to have plagiarized other articles or research results.
Department of Higher Education Director Ho Cho-fei (何卓飛) said the ministry was considering putting a black mark in the records of professors if they fail to carry out their duty as gatekeepers.
Scandals associated with plagiarism could have a major impact on a professor’s academic career, Ho said, adding that the ministry may implement the measure in the coming school year at the earliest.
Ho said the ministry had received reports of plagiarism allegations against 15 master’s theses or doctoral dissertations since last year. Seven of them were proven true, five were cleared, while three are still under investigation, he said, adding that the number of suspected cases had been on the increase.
The ministry previously also found cases in which local graduate students paid Chinese students to write theses or dissertations for them, Ho said.
Current regulations authorize schools to cancel a degree holder’s diploma should he or she be found to have plagiarized others’ work, but the law does not impose any punishment for the violator’s teacher.
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