Minister of Education Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) yesterday said that he and Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng (林冠英) had reached a consensus last week to provide infrastructure for Taiwanese universities seeking to set up branches in the Malaysian state.
Wu said in a press release that Lim agreed to set up an international education center, providing an 81 hectare plot of land and school buildings to attract top Taiwanese universities to set up branches in Penang.
National schools in Malaysia teach in Malay, with the exception of science and math, while private schools are allowed to teach in Mandarin or Tamil.
The Malaysian government announced that the two subjects would be taught in English from 2003 onward.
However, it has since been announced that the policy would be reversed in 2012.
Cheng Hsiu-chen (鄭秀貞), section chief of the ministry’s Department of Technological and Vocational Education, declined to comment when asked if the ministry knew about the regulation on language use in Malaysian schools.
Wu led a ministry delegation to Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam between July 15 and July 22 to participate in the Taiwan Higher Education Fair in Malaysia and visit officials.
Wu said Lim hoped Taiwanese universities and Malaysia could join hands to nurture the professionals Malaysia needs, while the ministry will also send a task force to help Penang hold an innovation and science fair for high school students.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
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