Land from closed universities should remain in the hands of non-profit organizations, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said yesterday.
“The law should be clarified to state that if a school ceases to accept students, but its board is not dissolved, it still has to operate as a non-profit foundation,” he said, adding that any revenue generated should not be transformed into “profits” belonging to individuals.
The foundations should still be required to engage in public benefit activities, he said, citing construction of affordable public housing as an example.
His comments follow speculation over how land belonging to closed universities is to be used.
Current ministry plans announced on Friday call for the closing or merging of up to one-third of universities in the face of a sharp decrease in student numbers caused by years of low birth rates.
Taiwan Higher Education Union secretary-general Chen Cheng-liang (陳政亮) on Friday criticized the ministry’s proposals, saying they failed to clearly specify the disposal of land owned by closed universities, leaving open the possibility for the process to become a source of massive corporate profits.
While the ministry has made clear that the restrictions schools face will be loosened as they are encouraged to “transition” and “innovate,” Wu yesterday declined to specify what kind of “transition” plans the ministry would approve, stating that “innovation” by definition needed to come from the bottom up.
Wu also promised to relieve the impact of the transition on teachers by requiring schools to increase their student-to-teacher ratios, preserving some positions as universities close and downsize.
Plans announced on Friday by the ministry were criticized by unions for only promising to establish a “platform” to help university faculty connect with and transition to jobs in other sectors.
Lee Yen-yi (李彥儀), director-general for the ministry’s technological and vocational education division, said the ministry is considering requiring universities to drop student-teacher ratios from the present 25-1, to either 24-1 or 23-1. Plans have yet to be finalized, she said.
Wu said the ministry would reduce the number of doctoral students universities were allowed to admit in order to relieve market pressure.
Current ministry plans call for doctoral student quotas to be reduced by 37 percent.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comment last year on Tokyo’s potential reaction to a Taiwan-China conflict has forced Beijing to rewrite its invasion plans, a retired Japanese general said. Takaichi told the Diet on Nov. 7 last year that a Chinese naval blockade or military attack on Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, potentially allowing Tokyo to exercise its right to collective self-defense. Former Japan Ground Self-Defense Force general Kiyofumi Ogawa said in a recent speech that the remark has been interpreted as meaning Japan could intervene in the early stages of a Taiwan Strait conflict, undermining China’s previous assumptions
Taiwan Railways Corp (TRC) today announced that Shin Kong Mitsukoshi has been selected as the preferred bidder to operate the Taipei Railway Station shopping mall, replacing the current operator, Breeze Development Co Ltd. Among eight qualified firms that delivered presentations and were evaluated by a review committee, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi was ranked first, while Breeze was named the runner-up, the rail company said in a statement. Contract negotiations are to proceed in accordance with regulations, it said, adding that if negotiations with the top bidder fail, it could invite the second-ranked applicant to enter talks. Breeze in a statement today expressed doubts over
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