Vice Minister of Education Lin Tsong-ming (林聰明) yesterday said the first official recruitment of Chinese students was far from successful, citing a too-short publicity period and too many restrictions as some of the reasons for the failure.
At a press conference in the Legislative Yuan, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chao Li-yun (趙麗雲) quoted Ministry of Education (MOE) figures as indicating that the ministry gave approval for higher education institutes to recruit a total of 2,141 Chinese students for undergraduate and postgraduate programs this year — equal to about 1 percent of Taiwanese students in the university system per year.
Schools accepted 1,263 Chinese students for the fall semester, but only 975 will actually enroll, marking a fulfillment rate of 45.5 percent, Chao said.
Lin attributed the lower-than-expected fulfillment rate mainly to the “three limits, six noes” policy for recruiting Chinese students.
The “three limits” are the restrictions the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) last year insisted the government impose: a cap on the number of Chinese universities the government can recognize, a cap on the number of Chinese college students who can enter Taiwan and a limit on the types of Chinese diplomas that can be accredited.
The DPP’s “six noes” ban Chinese students from receiving scholarships or professional licenses, from working or staying in Taiwan after graduation, from receiving extra points on examinations and from taking civil service examinations.
Lin also blamed universities for adopting tougher criteria for Chinese students. He said the ministry would review the recruitment policy at the end of September and will conduct another overall review after the first semester ends.
KMT Legislator Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) asked the ministry to discuss whether the “three limits, six noes” policy should be revamped.
The ministry’s statistics indicate nearly 70 percent of the quotas at 21 universities, mainly technology-focused, remained unfilled. Only private universities are allowed to recruit Chinese students for their undergraduate programs, except for National Quemoy University and National Penghu University of Science and Technology.
Quemoy University, which has a quota of 64, only had 10 Chinese undergraduates accept, while the Penghu school failed to attract even one.
Tamkang University admitted 100 Chinese, mainly in information engineering, mass communications and Japanese language and literature. Fu Jen Catholic University accepted 99 and Chinese Culture University admitted 92.
The high tuition and living cost in Taiwan compared with China might have put off some students, Chinese Culture University president Wu Wan-yih (吳萬益) said.
The rules were not to blame for quotas not being met, DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said.
Chang Hung-te (張鴻德), the secretary-general of the Mainland Students Admission Committee, said most Chinese students are interested in attending universities in Taiwan proper, especially in the Taipei area, not outlying islands.
Yang Ching-yao (楊景堯), associate professor at Tamkang University, said top Chinese students would prefer to further their studies in US and European universities.
Yang also said the Chinese government might have asked its high schools to give Taiwanese universities recruiting Chinese students for the first time some “face,” because more than 1,000 Chinese high schools each had one of its graduates apply for a spot at a Taiwanese school.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,