National Taiwan University (NTU) yesterday called on the government to lift the entry ban on foreign visitors so students from overseas can study in Taiwan, citing the rising numbers of international students who have enrolled.
The Executive Yuan has said that borders cannot be reopened until the global COVID-19 situation has been brought sufficiently under control.
The EU is likely to loosen its border controls soon and outstanding students who have been admitted to Taiwanese universities might go elsewhere if they are unable to arrive in Taiwan prior to the beginning of the new academic year in September, NTU said.
The government implemented an entry ban on most foreign nationals on March 19 to curb the spread of COVID-19.
International students are important for the globalization and research capacity of Taiwanese universities, the university said, adding that years of achievements in international recruitment could be undone.
About 550 foreign students studying at the university, including from China, Hong Kong and Macau, have been unable to attend classes this semester, NTU said.
While online courses are provided, many students have expressed hope that they would be able to enter Taiwan soon, it said.
The university has recruited about 1,000 foreign students for the new semester, a 20 percent increase from last year, with many of them graduates from prestigious universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Duke University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, NTU said, citing data from its Office of International Affairs.
Another 550 international exchange students are expected to begin studies at NTU in the new semester, it said.
The university has been making quarantine arrangements since early last month for new and returning international students, it said.
Hopefully, the government would announce a timeline soon to lift the entry ban so proper arrangements can be made, it said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching