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.
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