Controversy surrounding the way in which actor Matthew Lin (明道) and other male celebrities have sought numerous postponements of compulsory military service by delaying college graduations or transferring to different schools, has prompted an intra-ministerial meeting to come up with measures designed to stop manipulation of the military service system.
“Certainly everyone has the right to education, but no one should use that right to dodge their military duty,” Deputy Minister of the Interior Chien Tai-lang (簡太郎) told a news conference yesterday, saying that his ministry had called a meeting with representatives from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of National Defense, local governments and colleges on this issue.
Chien said that while the current University Act (大學法) stipulates a maximum period of time a student can take to complete an undergraduate, graduate or doctorate degree, there is no such regulation on continuous education programs that grant degrees. As a result, many celebrities enroll on such degree-granting programs and transfer from one school to another specifically to delay their military service.
Photo: Sean Chao, Taipei Times
According to the University Act, a student can take up to six years — or nine years for medical students — to complete an undergraduate degree, six years for a master’s degree and nine years for a doctorate.
However, those enrolled in -degree-granting continuous education programs, can postpone their military service until they are 33 years old.
One of the best-known examples is that of the 31-year-old actor Matthew Lin, who has been to five colleges in 11 years without getting a degree, but has still been able to use education as a reason to postpone his military service.
Many celebrities consider the one-year period of military service to be a “career killer,” because new faces can appear and fans might forget all about them.
Although the phenomenon has long existed, a new wave of public criticism has started in the wake of recent local media reports that Taiwanese-Canadian Vincent Chao (趙怡翔) voluntarily performed his military service even though as an “overseas citizen” he could claim an exemption.
“Right now, there are 31 people who are postponing military service by staying at school and the majority of them are celebrities,” Chien said, declining to provide further information on the identities of the people.
“To put an end to this phenomenon, we are fixing the Regulation on Exemption, Banned and Postponed Enlistment [免役禁役緩徵實施辦法] to require students enrolled in continuous education programs to complete their degree by the age of 28 the latest,” Chien said. “The ministry will also urge schools to check on attendance records and inform local conscription agencies immediately when a student drops out as a result of frequent absences or other reasons.”
Chien added his ministry would refer the revised regulation to the Executive Yuan next week for approval.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater