Former vice premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for Kaohsiung’s mayoral by-election, yesterday announced six policies to enhance the city’s overall competitiveness in education.
The policies include closing the rural-urban gap with digital technology, aligning teaching resources between community colleges and the Open University of Kaohsiung to complete a network of lifelong learning resources, and optimizing teaching, he said at an event in Kaohsiung.
Other policies include introducing diverse foreign language courses for international mobility; smart sustainable campuses, such as installing air-conditioning in every elementary and junior-high school classroom; and upgrading vocational education, he said.
Asked whether he would continue a scholarship program proposed by former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) to subsidize studies abroad, Chen said that the program would cost NT$40 billion (US$1.36 billion), but the education fund remaining from Han’s city government team is less than NT$400 million.
The program proposes providing subsidies of up to U$20,000 for 100 outstanding Kaohsiung college students to study abroad as part of efforts by the city government to cultivate talent with a global perspective.
To allocate resources effectively and take care of local students, the remaining education fund should be spent on promoting bilingual education and purchasing digital equipment for schools in remote areas, as well as subsidizing students taking part in international competitions, meetings, short-term visits and study tours, Chen said.
In line with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) childcare policy of providing subsidies to parents with children aged six or younger, Chen said that he plans to expand Kaohsiung’s public preschools and kindergartens to give parents easier access to high-quality childcare and education at an affordable price.
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