The Ministry of Education yesterday urged civic groups and companies to stop running ads claiming they could help Chinese schools recruit students in Taiwan.
The ministry’s Mainland Affairs Division issued a press release saying that helping schools in China recruit students in Taiwan violates the Act Governing the Relations Between the Peoples of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) and so does running ads to that effect.
Although Article 23 of the Act stipulates that all individuals, legal persons, groups or other institutions in Taiwan, China and other places can help Chinese schools recruit students in Taiwan after obtaining the relevant permits from the government, the ministry remains undecided regarding when to publicize regulations governing the application for permits, the division said.
The ministry remains concerned about how to negotiate educational matters with China reciprocally under the framework of the WTO and the potential impact on Taiwanese universities and colleges, the division said.
Any individuals or groups helping to recruit Taiwanese students for Chinese schools face a jail term of a maximum of one year and/or a fine of up to NT$1 million (US$30,800), while those who run the ads are liable to a fine of between NT$100,000 and NT$500,000, it added.
It was the second time this year the ministry had issued a press release asking local cram schools not to claim they could help Taiwanese students enter Chinese schools.
Ministry statistics showed that a total of 14,907 Taiwanese students attended Chinese universities between 1985 and 2007, while currently about 6,775 Taiwanese students are pursuing their education in China.
Meanwhile, in other news, the ministry yesterday said economically disadvantaged students at the nation’s private high schools, vocational high schools and junior colleges starting in September when the new academic year commences would pay public school-level rates of tuition fees.
Vice Minister of Education Chen Yi-hsing (陳益興) said students of families whose average annual income does not exceed NT$600,000 would receive the subsidy.
The policy would also apply to students whose families have an annual household income under NT$900,000 the following academic year, he added.
Close to 300,000 students will benefit when the new school year begins in the fall, while the government will need an additional NT$831 million budget to pay for it, Chen said.
The number of students benefiting will rise to 336,115, or 69.1 percent of students in high schools, vocational high schools and junior colleges the following year, which will cost the state an extra NT$2.27 billion, the ministry said.
Under the plan, students in private high schools will only have to pay NT$6,240 in tuition fees, while their counterparts in private vocational high schools will pay NT$5,400. Those at private junior colleges will have to pay NT$7,500.
In March, during a question-and-answer session with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) on the legislative floor, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) promised that the government would work to bridge the gap between the tuition fees at public and private high schools and vocational high schools as long as the state could afford it.
Ministry data showed that 51.53 percent, or 491,523 out of the 953,895 students studying in the nation’s high schools, vocational high schools and junior colleges this year, attend private schools.
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