More than 100 students, parents, teachers and workers yesterday demonstrated outside the Ministry of Education, protesting against the ministry’s plan to institutionalize college tuition fee adjustments and the cancellation of a public hearing on the issue.
“No to tuition increases,” “Withdraw the proposal or step down,” the protestors shouted.
Minor physical clashes broke out between the police and protestors when Tsai Chung-li (蔡忠利), an official from the ministry’s Department of Higher Education, came out to receive a petition from the protestors, but declined to promise to withdraw the tuition fee adjustment proposal.
Photo: CNA
The protestors attempted to force their way into the ministry building, but were pushed back by the police.
The angry crowd then threw flyers with their appeals across the ministry’s fence, while pasting tuition payment notices on the fence.
“Tuition should not go up, rather, it should go down,” a National Tsinghua University student, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) told the crowd. “The government says that it’s facing a budget shortage for education, but we think that budget shortages are happening because the government gives too many tax cuts to big corporatations.”
Photo: CNA
“Businesses should shoulder the responsibility for training future employees, they should not simply enjoy the benefits of cheap labor,” Chen added.
He said that if the government could levy an extra 2 percent tax from the total annual profit of NT$4.8 trillion (US$145 billion) that big businesses make in Taiwan, “there could be an extra NT$100 billion for education.”
Lo Te-shui (羅德水), deputy secretary-general of the National Federation of Teachers Unions, pointed out that as many as 40 percent of families in the country make less than NT$500,000 a year and that tuition fee hikes may be a big burden on these families.
“The objective of education is to enhance the movement between social classes, and to help students in fulfilling their dreams,” Lo said. “The unequal distribution of education resources is really worrisome.”
Several members of the Hualong Union also took part in the demonstration.
Yeh Chi-chin (葉紫金), a member of the union, said he is a father of two private college students.
“The tuition and other expenses, such as housing for my two kids, is a huge financial burden for me,” he said.
“It’s sad to see students become indebted with student loans as soon as they graduate, but then only make NT$20,000 to NT$30,000 a month,” Yeh added.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS