Several educators yesterday said the ongoing student movement against the cross-strait service trade agreement was galvanized by the younger generation’s fear that the pact could in effect flush their college diplomas down the toilet and add to the uncertainty of their future.
They made the remarks at a press conference on the nation’s widening education-jobs gap yesterday as the students’ unprecedented occupation of the legislature entered its 12th day.
Taipei Municipal Zhongshan Girls High School teacher Tuan Hsin-yi (段心儀), who is also a member of the Forum on Checking Educational Reform, said youngsters nowadays were devastated by the lack of hope for their future as the country continued to be plagued by problems of overworking, rocketing property prices and plummeting salaries.
“The student movement is just the first wave of a series of ‘volcanic eruptions,’” Tuan said.
National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Social Sciences Dean Lin Hui-lin (林惠玲) said just one-third of the 10.7 million students entering the employment market in 2011 had obtained jobs that required a college degree.
“In addition, about 600,000 of the 4 million students who graduated from college were forced to settle for jobs that junior or senior-high school graduates would qualify for,” Lin said.
NTU Institute of Applied Mechanics professor Wang Li-sheng (王立昇) attributed the growing education-jobs gap to the government’s policy to establish many senior-high schools and universities across the country.
“Thirty years ago, the country produced only about 28,000 college graduates each year, but that number has climbed dramatically to 230,000 at present. If the number of students graduating from postgraduate schools every year is also counted, the figure could stand at more than 300,000,” Wang said.
Yet because the industry’s demand for college graduates has not increased much over the past two decades, the imbalance has led to a severe depreciation of college degrees, Wang said.
“Take the manufacturing industry as an example. Most college graduates aim for jobs as a technician or an engineer, but these positions account for less than 30 percent of the 2 million jobs offered by the industry,” Wang said, adding that the lack of suitable positions often forced college graduates to accept low-level jobs in labor-intensive sectors.
Meanwhile, about 73 percent of the respondents to a survey released by the online job board yes123 yesterday expressed concern about their job opportunities being hindered by the cross-strait treaty, with 26.4 percent not concerned.
About 65.7 percent of respondents worried that their salaries could be affected, while 34.3 percent said they were not worried.
The poll also found that most first-time jobseekers looked for jobs through job-matching Web sites (48.4 percent) and began their application process before they graduated or had completed their compulsory military service (78.2 percent).
About 38.4 percent of those polled found job-hunting more difficult than a year ago, while 37.3 percent had a lower salary expectation this year compared with a year ago.
Despite an uncertain future, about 30 percent of respondents were willing to spend up to three years pursuing their dreams, including studying abroad, cultivating a second speciality and starting a business venture.
The poll was conducted between March 20 and Wednesday and collected 692 valid samples.
It had a margin of error of 3.73 percentage points.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
UPDATED TEST: The new rules aim to assess drivers’ awareness of risky behaviors and how they respond under certain circumstances, the Highway Bureau said Driver’s license applicants who fail to yield to pedestrians at intersections or to check blind spots, or omit pointing-and-calling procedures would fail the driving test, the Highway Bureau said yesterday. The change is set to be implemented at the end of the month, and is part of the bureau’s reform of the driving portion of the test, which has been criticized for failing to assess whether drivers can operate vehicles safely. Sedan drivers would be tested regarding yielding to pedestrians and turning their heads to check blind spots, while drivers of large vehicles would be tested on their familiarity with pointing-and-calling
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
A Taiwanese man apologized on Friday after saying in a social media post that he worked with Australia to provide scouting reports on Taiwan’s team, enabling Australia’s victory in this year’s World Baseball Classic (WBC), saying it was a joke and that he did not hold any position with foreign teams or Taiwan’s sports training center. Chen Po-hao (陳柏豪) drew the rage of many Taiwan baseball fans when he posted online on Thursday night, claiming credit for Australia’s 3-0 win over Taiwan in the opening game for Pool C, saying he worked as a physical therapist with the national team and
RSS