The Ministry of Education will meet next week to investigate why too few students were allocated to some schools, a ministry spokesperson said yesterday.
The fiasco erupted on Wednesday when errors were found on lists the ministry published of students to be admitted to the nation's high schools, vocational schools and junior colleges.
The placement lists are based mainly on students' scores in basic academic tests and the preferences of the students.
PHOTO: LEE HUNG-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
Several high schools in Taipei and Kaohsiung districts, however, found that the number of students allocated to them was less than the number of vacancies.
Taichung Polytechnic College, which was organizing student allocations on behalf of the ministry, discovered that the number of places set aside for handicapped and Aboriginal students at these schools had in effect been allocated twice, meaning that the number of other students placed was fewer than the schools had requested.
Responding to criticism of the ministry, spokesperson Lee Ming (
"The ministry's top priority is to make sure students are placed satisfactorily," Lee said.
"After that has been taken care of, the ministry will definitely re-evaluate [the system] and consider punishments."
Lee's remarks came in response to PFP legislators Shen Chih-hwei (沈智慧) and Chin Huei-chu (秦慧珠), who held a press conference yesterday to demand that Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) step down to take responsibility for the errors.
"This fiasco is not only wearing on the students and their parents but also violates students' education rights," Shen said. "Huang should take responsibility for this matter."
Although Huang on Thursday apologized for the mistake, he was unavailable for comment on the calls for him to resign yesterday.
However, Chen Te-hua (陳德華), director of the ministry's Technological and Vocational Education Department -- who was in charge of the placement process -- said yesterday he was prepared to take responsibility for any negligence regarding his supervision of the student placement scheme.
A new placement list will be published next Wednesday afternoon, Lu Mu-lin (呂木琳), administrative vice minister, said yesterday.
Many students may be placed at different schools when the new list comes out.
Because some students may be disappointed by their placements on the new lists, the ministry said that students who were assigned to different schools would be allowed to choose between the two schools.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
RSS