To display its resolve to sort out once and for all the financial problems surrounding several private schools, the Ministry of Education recently released a list of 10 schools -- the largest number ever -- which have been penalized by having their funding from the ministry frozen.
The total amount of the frozen funding amounts to more than NT$306 million, which accounts for 7 percent of the entire educational subsidy earmarked for private schools this year.
Four out of the 10 schools have been punished by having their budgets -- slated for distribution in the latter half of the 2001 fiscal year -- frozen entirely. These four schools include the Jin-Wen Institute of Technology (
The other six are to have additional performance-related subsidies cut off.
Some of these schools were chastised for their financial mis-management and others were singled out for problems on their school boards.
An official at the ministry said the move to publicize a complete list of funding provided to each school signaled the ministry's determination to rectify long-standing financial irregularities at private institutes.
"By publicly issuing this detailed list, the ministry has attempted to put the fear of God into the trouble-ridden schools ... The ministry hopes schools can make the best use of educational funding, for the sake of their students," said Wang Fu-lin (王福林), vice director of the ministry's department of technological and vocational education.
The schools that are on the punishment list can apply for a review if their operations are turned around or if they manage to sort out their troubled financial situations, and their subsidies will be restored once they pass the ministry's muster.
Up to now, however, only the Ching Yun Institute of Technology has applied to have its status reviewed.
It is the Jin-Wen Institute that has, without doubt, attracted the most attention.
The month-long scandal took a new twist yesterday, as officials began a probe into the source of the founding capital for the Jin-Wen High School (
Fourteen officials responsible for the establishment of the high school, between 1991 to 1993, were questioned by the justice department yesterday.
The next person on the list to be investigated is Lin Chao-hsien (
Lin served as the director of the Taipei City Government's education bureau at the same time the high school was founded.
The Jin-Wen scandal erupted last July when Chang Wan-li (
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