A total of 2,881 vocational high-school students have signed up for the annual vocational skills competition to be held from Tuesday next week to Dec. 5, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said on Tuesday.
In previous years the top prize winner was sent abroad for study, but this year the runner-up would also be given the chance to study abroad, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told a news conference in Taipei.
Taoyuan Private Yung Ping Technological Senior High School students Lee Chen-yu (李晨瑜) and Tseng Yun-ching (曾雲璟) showed off their skills at the news conference, decorating cupcakes with flower-shaped icing in under three minutes.
Photo: Lin Hsiao-yun, Taipei Times
Tseng said that she decorated the cupcakes following a South Korean style, in which the flowers are made using very thinly applied icing to make them appear more realistic.
Two other students from the school, Chiu Ling-chen (邱翎榛) and Lee Shan-tzu (黎善慈), demonstrated their artistic napkin-folding skills.
The two said they can fold napkins in at least 50 different shapes.
Demonstrating for reporters, they produced boats and butterflies from napkins.
The competition, which is only open to high-school seniors from vocational institutes, is crucial in helping them demonstrate the skills they learned over three years, said Lee Chiung-hui (李瓊慧), the director of the school’s internship program.
Success in the competition can also help a student secure a place in a technical college, she said, adding that the students prepare for the competition even during holidays.
Vocational education would become more important, as the government plans to invest NT$800 million (US$26.2 million) into vocational institutions as part of the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, Pan said.
The government hopes to provide the nation’s industries with talented people and encourage students to engage in interdisciplinary learning, he said.
It has set up a platform for matching vocational-school graduates with jobs, and several businesses have signed on to the platform, K-12 Education Administration head Tai Shu-fen (戴淑芬) said.
Information on the platform about learning programs and businesses is divided into five categories: general industry, commerce, agriculture, domestic affairs and aquaculture, Tai said.
The platform can be accessed via the administration’s Web site: sci.me.ntnu.edu.tw, she said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods