The Ministry of Education yesterday said it had reservations about the possibility of Taiwanese universities jointly launching schools with Chinese universities in China.
Vice Minister of Education Lin Tsong-ming (林聰明) told a National Education Conference that the ministry needs to first evaluate the feasibility of such plans to ensure the capital invested by local universities is not embezzled in China.
Lin made the remark after National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) president Shaw Jei-fu (蕭介夫) told the conference that Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University (FAFU) had proposed that the two universities launch a school in China.
Shaw said the FAFU offered a 1,000-hectare plot of land while NCHU was asked to provide faculty and teaching materials.
According to the proposal, the two universities would share tuition fees, Shaw said.
Lin said that while the ministry would establish a task force to discuss regulations, national universities should not spend public funds on such projects.
Shaw said the government should instead encourage local universities to “export” their teaching, adding that this would help enhance the global visibility of Taiwan’s education system.
The conference — the first in 16 years — was organized to provide guidance on education policy over the next decade.
The agenda included cross-strait and international education, higher education development, lifelong learning, cultivation of talent in a knowledge-based economy and education for children with special needs.
Chou Yi-shun (周以順), executive secretary of the ministry’s Mainland Affairs Division, said that although the ministry completed a draft cross-strait education cooperation framework agreement last year, that deal remains subject to the plans of the Mainland Affairs Council and the Straits Exchange Foundation.
Meanwhile, the ministry vowed to publish a white paper on how to strengthen elementary, junior and senior high school students’ understanding of global affairs by the end of the year.
Statistics from the ministry showed that only 26,730 students and teachers, or 1.4 percent of the students and teachers below high school level, had participated in international exchanges as of the fall semester, while only 242 elementary, junior and senior high schools offered international education-related classes.
A draft white paper publicized by the ministry’s Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations last week said the ministry plans to designate “important international partnership zones” that have close ties with Taiwan in terms of history, culture, national security, diplomacy and trade, as a way of promoting international education among students below senior high school level.
The ministry also pledged to establish an administrative branch in charge of education for Aborigines in 2012 and requested NT$15 billion (US$469.2 million) over a five year period to improve education for Aboriginal students.
Lin said the ministry would also establish a cross-departmental task force to discuss the possibility of extending the nation’s compulsory education from nine to 12 years.
National Alliance of Parents Organizations chairman Hsieh Kuo-ching (謝國清), however, questioned the ministry’s determination to promote a 12-year compulsory education system, because it failed to announce a specific timetable to implement the extension.
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