The Ministry of National Defense must offer measures to meet the quota for military personnel for a full-volunteer military force planned for next year while taking falling birth rates into consideration, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Wednesday.
DPP Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) said the Republic of China (ROC) Military Academy had drawn 6,311, 7,175 and 5,802 recruits in 2014, last year and this year respectively.
Ministry Deputy Chief of General Staff for Personnel Lieutenant General Hsu Yen-pu (徐衍璞) said the ROC Military Academy was 210 students short this year.
However, Hsu said that there were still 300 students who were qualified for the academy, but have not yet enrolled at the academy, as their scores were good enough to be accepted to other higher-education providers.
The ministry would be asking them what their intentions are and striving to “recruit as many people as possible,” Hsu said.
The committee passed a first reading of a draft amendment on select parts of the Act of Military Education (軍事教育條例), which says that the ministry should cooperate with select vocational schools and junior colleges, with the latter agreeing to provide military courses so that military personnel would be able to seek higher honors.
The courses would be exempt from restrictions on student numbers and recruitment methods stipulated in the University Act (大學法) and Junior College Act (專科學校法) if the amendments are passed, Hsu said, adding that in the future the ministry would also set up associate degrees, bachelor degrees and master degrees in military areas.
The ministry announced that it was looking to work with a total of 16 facilities.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Johnny Chiang (江啟臣) said that most of them were private institutions.
The ministry should look into whether any of the education providers are scheduled by the Ministry of Education for closure to avoid embarrassment and hurting incentives, Chiang said.
The defense ministry said it would take Chiang’s suggestion into consideration.
Meanwhile, DPP Legislator Lu Sun-ling (呂孫綾) questioned the defense ministry’s inclusion of certificates on aromatics and scents, as well as funeral service certificates, in a list of 20 courses.
Deputy Minister of National Defense Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) said that the courses were designed to be diverse and inclusive to better provide a fall-back expertise for retired soldiers.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS