The government is neither pushing colleges to provide enough dormitory rooms nor ensuring the safety of off-campus student housing units for 670,000 students, civic groups said yesterday.
The safety of student housing caught the attention of the public in March when a fire at a privately run off-campus student housing complex near Donghua University in Hualien County in the middle of the night took one life.
At the time, the Ministry of Education promised to ensure the safety of student housing, but six months later the new semester has begun for college students and the problems remain, the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare and the Social Housing Promotion Alliance said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“There are 670,000 college students across the country with housing needs, but school dormitories are only capable of housing about 46 percent of them — approximately 330,000 — while the other 54 percent are on their own when it comes to finding accommodation near the school,” Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare secretary-general Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) told a press conference.
She said that despite the large number of students who need to find off-campus housing, there is still not a mechanism to make sure that off-campus housing is safe or for students to register complaints.
“There’s no way the for the government to continuously monitor these off-campus housing units and there is no channel through which students can file complaints if there is a problems with their accommodation,” Yeh said.
Social Housing Promotion Alliance spokesperson Lu Ping-yi (呂秉怡) said the ministry was ignoring the issue.
“With such a high demand for student housing, it should be a school’s responsibility to provide enough housing for their students and it’s the ministry’s responsibility to put pressure on schools to provide more housing units for their students,” Lu said. “However, whenever we talked to the ministry, officials told us that they shared our concern, but added that the handling of student accommodation is part of the academic independence of colleges.”
“If the ministry doesn’t do anything, the colleges won’t act,” he added.
Lu said the ministry promised to inspect safety at off-campus student housing units back in March, “and they said they completed the inspection by the end of June, but when we went to those off-campus student housing complexes that passed the inspection, we still found problems.”
For instance, Lu said, while showing pictures to the media, the emergency ladders were blocked by tin sheets at one apartment building rented out to students, while at another the gas-operated water heater is located in a closed hallway right outside the bathroom.
“The government is not working hard enough to urge colleges to provide more on-campus housing for students and it is also not doing what it promised — to ensure that student housing units are safe,” Lu said.
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
A Japan Self-Defense Forces vessel entered the Taiwan Strait yesterday, Japanese media reported. After passing through the Taiwan Strait, the Ikazuchi was to proceed to the South China Sea to take part in a joint military exercise with the US and the Philippines, the reports said. Japan Self-Defense Force vessels were first reported to have passed through the strait in September, 2024, with two further transits taking place in February and June last year, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Yesterday’s transit also marked the first time since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office that a Japanese warship has been sent through the Taiwan
‘SAME OLD TRICK’: Even if Beijing resumes individual travel to Taiwan, it would only benefit Chinese tourism companies, the Economic Democracy Union convener said China’s 10 new “incentives” are “sugar-coated poison,” an official said yesterday, adding that Taiwanese businesses see them clearly for what they are, but that Beijing would inevitably find some local collaborators to try to drums up support. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, made the remark ahead of a news conference the General Chamber of Commerce is to hold today. The event, titled “Industry Perspectives on China’s Recent Pro-Taiwan Policies,” is expected to include representatives from industry associations — such as those in travel, hotels, food and agriculture — to request the government cooperate with China’s new measures, people familiar with
RSS