Taiwan is to broaden subsidies for college tuition, make high school and vocational high schools free, and extend tuition loans, Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said on the sidelines of an event at the Freeway Bureau’s traffic control center in Taipei yesterday.
Chen’s remarks came a day after Vice President William Lai (清德昨), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, said that Taiwanese students enrolled in private colleges would receive up to NT$25,000 in tuition subsidies to alleviate their financial burden.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate, yesterday said that the proposed measure was a DPP bid to pander to voters before next year’s presidential and legislative elections.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Chen said that President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration had carefully examined the issue of education access before deciding to target tuition fees at private colleges.
Tuition costs bar many Taiwanese from pursuing the education they want at private universities and colleges, he said, adding that the subsidies are aimed at leveling the playing field and increasing fairness in education opportunities.
Separately, DPP spokesman Chang Chih-hao (張志豪) told a news conference following a session of the party’s Central Standing Committee that Lai’s latest proposals were a continuation of the vice president’s concern for giving poorer Taiwanese a fair chance to access education.
Photo courtesy of William Lai’s campaign office via CNA
Lai reduced the interest on student loans and extended the grace period for repayments during his time as premier, Chang said.
Taiwanese from low-income households often had no option other than attending expensive private colleges, which is a situation that doubly disadvantaged them, Chang said, citing Lai’s comments at the committee meeting.
The proposed measures would address those issues, Chang added.
Under current regulations, households with an income of less than NT$1.48 million (US$47,865) are exempt from paying high-school and vocational-school tuition fees, while all others must pay tuition of NT$6,240 per semester per child attending such institutions.
Under the revised rules, all households would be exempt from the fees, Chen said, adding that the policy change is expected to benefit 113,000 students.
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS