Dropouts in the last academic year constituted a record-high 13.38 percent of all university students in Taiwan, the Ministry of Education said.
Of the nation’s 1.24 million university students in the last academic year, 166,562 decided to stop pursuing a university degree temporarily or permanently, ministry data showed.
While Taiwan has seen a steady number of university dropouts over the past several years, the annual dropout rate has been increasing due to a declining number of total students caused by the nation’s falling birthrate, Department of Higher Education Director-General Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰) said on Monday.
The rates differ between universities, but generally private universities have higher dropout rates than public schools, while night schools have higher rates than day schools, Chu said.
Of the 166,562 dropouts in the last academic year, about 77,000 left temporarily, while those who left permanently cited reasons including job needs (about 19,000), a lack of interest in their major (about 11,000), poor grades (about 5,500) and financial difficulties (about 3,700), he said.
Sickness, compulsory military service, childcare and pregnancy were other reasons, he added.
The ministry is to launch measures allowing students to take more interdepartmental courses to cater to different learning needs, as well as provide scholarships for those with financial difficulties, Chu said.
The Joint Board of College Recruitment Commission said that a new curriculum in the 12-year national education program and a revamped university admissions system have helped match students with their fields of interest.
National Chung Hsing University professor Wu Tung-hsing (武東星) called on universities to draft more flexible course regulations for first-year students.
Universities allowing students to dabble in different academic fields without requiring them to extend their education by an additional year or two could benefit those who find themselves uninterested in their major, Wu said.
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