A coalition of education reform groups yesterday criticized the Ministry of Education for allowing universities to hold admissions interviews for similar programs on the same days, which they said not only limits students’ choices but undermines the spirit of education.
The ministry should ensure that university programs that belong to the same discipline and require similar test scores hold admission interviews on separate days, National Alliance of Presidents of Parents’ Associations president Liu Shih-hung (劉世鴻) said at a news conference in front of the ministry yesterday.
“There were originally more than 600 university programs holding interviews on the same days, but the number was reduced to 456 after the Joint Board of College Recruitment Commission intervened and negotiated with schools,” Alliance for Education Action president Wang Li-sheng (王立昇) said.
However, when education groups and parents’ associations on Dec. 29 asked the commission to further reduce the number, increasing students’ chances to be accepted to a program they love, the latter responded that application rules and interview dates for the next academic year have already been announced and therefore cannot be changed, Taiwan Early Childhood Education Association president Su Yu-cheng (蘇祐晟) said.
If students receive offers from more than one program, programs that do not see their offers accepted would not be able to recruit their desired number of students until the next phase of the admissions process, Liu said.
Of all electrical engineering and information technology programs, 38 have scheduled their interview on the April 14, Wang said, adding that “Students interested in the discipline must choose one program and give up on the other 37.”
The problems could easily be solved by having schools reschedule their interviews and notifying students of the changes, Su said, adding that effective ways to inform the students of date changes include adding the information on their General Scholastic Ability Test transcripts, creating popup windows on the Web sites where students will fill out their online applications or announcing them at schools and through media outlets.
Chen Chih-chen (陳綺貞), the mother of a third-year high-school student, said the unnecessary restrictions are “pushing students abroad.”
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