Exploitation cases of foreign students at vocational and technical colleges have recently been in the news, including Sri Lankans studying at the University of Kang Ning in Taipei, Indonesians at Chienkuo Technology University in Changhua County, and Ugandans at Chung Chou University of Science and Technology (CCUST), also in Changhua.
Over the past two decades, due to the nation’s low birthrate, many vocational and technical colleges have sought to bolster student numbers by recruiting from abroad. This trend reached its apogee when former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was in office and the nation’s colleges were additionally being flooded with Chinese students.
However, Chinese student numbers declined following the election of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) in 2016, and fell precipitously after the imposition COVID-19 border controls.
Under increasing financial strain, many private colleges have turned to recruiting students from Southeast Asia and Africa, but this appears to have evolved into squeezing foreign students dry through a system of forced labor and induced indebtedness.
Take the case of Collines Mugisha, a Ugandan student who has sued CCUST.
University officials had allegedly traveled to Uganda for recruitment, telling prospective students that they would receive a scholarship, teaching materials in English and work experiences arranged by the school.
However, after the students arrived in Taiwan, they discovered that lessons were taught in Chinese or translated through Google. Not only were they unable to understand the lessons, but scholarship funding did not materialize and they were compelled to work as factory interns, often in two jobs for 10 hours a day, to meet expenses and pay off their debts, leaving them physically and mentally exhausted.
Media reports have said that the university recruited them as “non-vocational” international students so that their curriculum, teachers and internships would not be subject to a review by the Ministry of Education. The ministry has been accused of turning a blind eye to the practice.
After the story broke, Deputy Minister of Education Lio Mon-chi (劉孟奇) said that the ministry would next month start conducting a review of academic institutions identified as “high-risk,” adding that there are more than 20 private colleges on the ministry’s watch list.
How does the ministry intend to handle the situation if its review identifies deficiencies? Simply suspending the recruitment of international students, reducing government subsidies or implementing other similarly insignificant penalties would be insufficient to undo the damage done to Taiwan’s international image, and do nothing to solve the sector’s funding crisis.
Regarding the closing of private colleges, I have previously suggested that campuses could be converted into “retirement villages” to provide long-term care for Taiwan’s aging population. Unfortunately, a lack of legislation and the self-serving nature of many college deans mean that such a solution would probably never come to fruition.
Given the urgent need to provide additional social housing — and given that private college campuses usually have excellent transport connections and are leafy environments suitable for residential living — the government should negotiate with the management boards of private colleges to develop a mechanism for handling closures, which would involve colleges providing land to central and local governments for the joint-funding of new residential communities.
This could also provide low-rent housing for young people who are saving to buy a home or have recently entered the job market.
Huang Rongwen is a professor at National Changhua University of Education.
Translated by Edward Jones
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