Subsidy funding for universities in the five-year-plan era will shrink by 15 percent from next year following a report by the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center that said the plan has failed to meet three intended targets, as well as National Taiwan University’s (NTU) first-ever slide in its world ranking, the Ministry of Education said in a recent report.
The plan is the second stage of the Road to Top Notch Universities Project that began in 2011, with the ministry allocating NT$50 billion (US$1.6 billion) over five years to universities in the hope of boosting research facilities and international reputations.
However, with the NTU’s slide from the top 51 to 60 universities last year to the top 61 to 70 this year, in accordance with the Times Higher Education World University Rankings published on March 12, and the Budget Center’s discovery of three unmet target indices, the project’s implementation has again been questioned.
According to the center’s investigation, up until 2013 the project had not met the target indices for attracting 200 people who are academicians or members of important societies and associations among full-time university faculty; an increase of 695 items per year of patents or new researches; and 100 percent growth in income based on intellectual property rights.
Though many university presidents place the blame on lack of funding for higher education, the nation has sunk nearly NT$100 billion since the predecessor of the project began in 2006.
The Control Yuan tendered multiple warnings to universities that misused funds to apply to join the project. NTU, for example, was tapped by the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee for allocating NT$410 million of its project subsidies on office stationery in 2013.
Former Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) said policies for the project were interfered with in the past and are tilted toward research more concerned with benefits rather than academic worth, which caused the acceleration of an M-shaped university environment, proving disadvantageous for research on the humanities, a slump in education function, and a discrepancy between application and learning.
Although a decrease in funding is not possible, the ministry might want to consider lowering the amount of universities eligible for the funding to better concentrate resources used to develop the applicants, Huang said.
It would provide more aid to universities that are competing internationally or are helping to solve national issues, Huang said.
Former Minister of Education Ovid Tzeng (曾志朗) said the third stage of the project must face a stylistic transition and encourage better integration of universities and industry, cross-subject and cross-university learning, as well as active integration into the international academic community.
The head of state should be globally minded, so that the project can provide the talent Taiwan needs for its future, Tzeng said.
In response, the ministry has revealed a draft of its funding for the project’s third phase, which would continue to provide funding for universities under the project, but with a 15 percent cut in funding.
Of the NT$7.5 billion allocated per year, NT$5 billion would be for the project, while NT$2.5 billion would be used solely for cultivating future talents, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) said, adding that the ministry hopes corporations would step in to cover the short fall if the funding is insufficient.
The ministry has established a task force to ensure the project concentrates on education of the liberal arts, holistic education and care for disadvantaged people, Wu said, adding that the task force would also monitor how research results affect the nation’s industry and society.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
ANNUAL EVENT: Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in Daan Park, with an event zone operating from 10am to 6pm This year’s Taipei Floral Picnic is to be held at Daan Park today and tomorrow, featuring an exclusive Pokemon Go event, a themed food market, a coffee rave picnic area and stage performances, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said yesterday. Two massive Pokemon balloons are to be set up in the park as attractions, with an exclusive event zone operating from 10am to 6pm, it said. Participants who complete designated tasks on-site would have a chance to receive limited-edition souvenirs, it added. People could also try the newly launched game Pokemon Pokopia in the trial area, the department said. Three PokeStops are
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
RSS