The 2019 novel coronavirus is spreading across the world, and the epidemic might be with us beyond the short term. During the winter break, schools were fine, but now they must pay attention to epidemic prevention.
The situation is more complex for universities, since that involves Chinese students. Chinese exchange students have been banned, but how about Chinese students who are officially registered at Taiwanese universities?
Even before the Ministry of Education made this decision, several universities had announced that they would postpone the start of school to allow Chinese students time to self-quarantine for 14 days after entering Taiwan. However, the government’s requirement that Chinese students be isolated for two weeks in single rooms is a great challenge to local school resources and personnel.
The easiest way to tackle this issue is to delay the return of Chinese students until the epidemic ends. During this time, students could take courses at nearby Chinese universities and their credits could be recognized by the Taiwanese institutions.
Unfortunately, this requires administrative cooperation with Chinese universities, which is not an easy task, due to the lack of communication between the Taiwanese and Chinese governments. Also, with the convenient online learning systems modern universities possess, arrangements could be made for students to take online courses from outside Taiwan, and they could discuss issues with their Taiwanese teachers through videoconferencing.
As Taiwan allows officially registered Chinese students to enter Taiwan, the 14-day self-quarantine period seems necessary. Still, the education ministry should act boldly and resolutely to ease the burden on universities and simplify related issues.
For example, the education authorities in each local administration could rent business hotels to place Chinese students under self-quarantine in one central location. By doing so, hotels that have suffered financial losses due to the outbreak would at least be able to make some money, and it would also help the tourism industry.
It is of course questionable whether hotels would be willing to serve as temporary shelters for self-quarantined Chinese students, and whether their neighbors would protest, so it would perhaps be less controversial to isolate Chinese students at school dormitories.
However, as the winter break is relatively short in Taiwan, many schools did not ask students to empty their rooms during the break. Although the delayed return to universities to after Feb. 25 would allow Chinese students to isolate themselves in single rooms at school dormitories, how should schools empty students’ rooms? Would such an evacuation lead to complaints? Would they worry about the sterilization of their rooms when they move back in afterward? These are just some of the concerns.
The education ministry should specify a school opening day for all universities and establish rules on how to handle Chinese students, to avoid the chaos caused by local universities each playing their own tune. The easiest and safest strategy would be to suspend Chinese students from entering Taiwan until the epidemic is over.
During this period, Chinese students could continue their education online and thus would not have to suspend their studies. Such courses should be free of charge.
These students should be permitted to take more courses every semester to make up for the time that they would lose with this strategy.
Chang Ruay-shiung is president of National Taipei University of Business.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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