The Executive Yuan yesterday approved draft legislation that would close private universities that fail to enroll enough students, with the Ministry of Education scheduled to announce enrollment figures and the financial status of all universities next month to alert students and academics to possible closures.
Under the bill, universities that have less than 3,000 students, fail to achieve at least 60 percent of their enrollment goal for two consecutive years, fail to pay faculty salaries for three months in a row or exhibit signs of financial instability would be placed on a watch list; they would be closed in three years should they fail to make improvements, Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter (姚立德) said.
The bill was proposed to reduce the number of universities given the nation’s low birth rate.
Photo: CNA
New college students last year totaled 255,000, a decrease of 15,000 from 2015, ministry data showed.
The number is predicted to drastically diminish to about 156,000 in 2028, suggesting huge enrollment difficulties for universities.
While the ministry cannot announce which universities will face closure until the Legislative Yuan approves the bill, it will for announce enrollment figures and the financial status and faculty numbers of universities nationwide for the first time, Yao said.
The figures and statistics are to be updated annually, he added.
Schools facing closure could be transformed into other educational, cultural or welfare institutions, or they could be liquidated, the ministry said, adding that when a university begins liquidation, faculty would have priority to receive payments to protect salaries, severance pay and pensions.
Any surplus funds following the liquidation would be diverted to local governments or a ministry fund to phase out substandard universities, it said.
The restriction on surplus funds aims to prevent a university’s management from appropriating school assets or selling off school properties, it added.
“While some universities might use the transition as an excuse to avoid liquidation without actually fulfilling the functions of an alternative educational, cultural or welfare institution, the draft legislation authorizes relevant government authorities to impose forced liquidation,” Yao said.
To protect the rights of students and faculty, the ministry fund would be used to relocate students and provide loans to financially troubled universities to pay teachers’ salaries and pensions, he said.
The fund has been allocated NT$2.5 billion (US$83.3 million), which is to be expanded to NT$5 billion in three years through the ministry’s budget, he added.
As the expected drop in the number of students would also pose a severe problem for public universities, the ministry plans to reduce the enrollment quota of departments that fail to reach 80 percent of their enrollment goal, Yao said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS