The Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday approved a draft amendment to the regulations for Studying and Counseling Assistance for Overseas Compatriot Students in Taiwan (僑生回國就學及輔導辦法) to extend the amount of time these students can visit Taiwan.
The amendment proposes to extend the maximum length of stay every year from 90 to 120 days to meet the students’ needs regarding family visits and vacations.
The amendment also seeks to relax the requirement on overseas compatriot students entering graduate schools for working professionals, allowing only those who have obtained legal residency, not as a student, to file an application for such schools.
Currently, the students are barred from applying for graduate programs for working professionals for fear they could try to obtain residency in Taiwan through enrolment in such programs.
If approved by the legislature, the amendment would allow universities and colleges that have received permission to begin to recruit overseas Taiwanese compatriots and allow such students to apply for programs directly with the schools.
At present, the students can only file applications to return to Taiwan for study and provide a priority list of the schools they are interested in to embassies, consulates, representative offices or organizations authorized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The proposal also seeks to modify the requirement that overseas compatriot students provide formal consent from guardians living in Taiwan. The proposed amendment would exempt students older than 20 from such a requirement.
The draft also proposes to allow universities and colleges to fill their local student vacancies by recruiting overseas compatriots.
To prevent compatriots from working illegally while in Taiwan, the amendment would require obliging schools and the Council of Labor Affairs to immediately deal with students found to have worked illegally. Schools that fail to comply would see their number of vacancies for overseas compatriots cut.
The draft would also allow talented compatriots to stay in Taiwan for internships after graduation rather than requiring that they leave the country after graduation, suspension of studies or expulsion.
Meanwhile, a ministry official said that the government had decided it would allow public universities to merge as student numbers continue to shrink because of the nation’s low birthrate.
Two planned mergers, one of them involving National Taiwan University, are likely to go ahead after the legislature passed a bill on Monday allowing colleges to team up to better utilize resources, the official said.
The bill came after a recent forecast predicted that about 60 colleges out of the current 164 could close by 2021 because of a shortage of students.
About 300,000 high-school graduates are eligible to apply for college each year, but the number is expected to drop to 195,000 in 2021, demographic forecasts show.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY AFP
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
FINAL COUNTDOWN: About 50,000 attended a pro-recall rally yesterday, while the KMT and the TPP plan to rally against the recall votes today Democracy activists, together with arts and education representatives, yesterday organized a motorcade, while thousands gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei in the evening in support of tomorrow’s recall votes. Recall votes for 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers and suspended Hsinchu City mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) are to be held tomorrow, while recall votes for seven other KMT lawmakers are scheduled for Aug. 23. The afternoon motorcade was led by the Spring Breeze Culture and Arts Foundation, the Tyzen Hsiao Foundation and the Friends of Lee Teng-hui Association, and was joined by delegates from the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the Taiwan Solidarity
An SOS message in a bottle has been found in Ireland that is believed to have come from the Taiwanese captain of fishing vessel Yong Yu Sing No. 18 (永裕興18號), who has been missing without a trace for over four years, along with nine Indonesian crew members. The vessel, registered to Suao (蘇澳), went missing near Hawaii on Dec. 30, 2020. The ship has since been recovered, but the 10 crew members have never been found. The captain, surnamed Lee (李), is believed to have signed the note with his name. A post appeared on Reddit on Tuesday after a man
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS