The president of National Taiwan University’s (NTU) student association yesterday called on incoming freshmen to help improve the school, citing the challenges it has faced over the past year, including reduced government funding for higher education and the controversy surrounding the university presidential election.
The university’s Taipei campus yesterday opened the new academic year with a ceremony that doubled as a way to welcome the new freshmen class.
NTU acting president Kuo Tei-wei (郭大維) urged the new students to work hard, but to aim beyond high test scores, adding that they should focus on improving their knowledge while contributing to society.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
National Taiwan University Student Association president Michelle Wu (吳奕柔) told the students to use their knowledge and passion to make the world a better place.
As important members of the school, students are responsible for improving it, she added.
“NTU might not be as good as we would like. The controversy surrounding the university president’s election, which has been going on since last year, and reduced government funding for higher education are tests to see whether this school is going to get better or worse,” she said, referring to the controversy over NTU president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔).
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Education on April 27 refused to approve Kuan’s election citing allegations of a potential conflict of interest in the election process and asked NTU to hold a new presidential election.
Students must put in the work to improve the university, Wu said.
National Taiwan University Graduate Student Association president Xu Rui-fu (許瑞福), in his address to newcomers, said that over the past few years, higher education in Taiwan has faced a series of challenges, from the nation’s increasingly restricted international space to a dwindling birth rate and Beijing’s 31 measures to encourage Taiwanese to move to China.
“The number of NTU doctoral students has been steadily decreasing. In the past six years, the total number has fallen by more than 1,500. Meanwhile, the low birth rate has led to a growing number of those with doctorates being unemployed, making it more tempting to take jobs abroad,” he said.
Blessed with more opportunities and options in life, NTU students should aim to contribute to the nation during this difficult time, he said, urging them to follow in the footsteps of US civil rights leader the reverend Martin Luther King Jr and former South African president Nelson Mandela.
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:
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