Three Cabinet officials who come from academic circles were accused by legislators of allegedly plagiarizing their students' theses, local media reported yesterday.
A lawmaker who requested not to be named, over the weekend accused the National Science Council Chairman Weng Cheng-i (翁政義) of plagiarism. The lawmaker said that a research paper written by the official in 1994 resembled a thesis by Sun Yen-shuo (孫彥碩), a student of Weng's.
"If investigations proves [the alleged plagiarism] is true, I will step down," the NSC chairman said during a meeting with lawmakers from the Technology and Information Committee at the Legislative Yuan.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMESN
Two more officials, Minister of Education Ovid Tseng (
The PFP lawmakers said Tseng received NT$667,300 of funding from the NSC in 1996 for research on the Chinese language.
The lawmakers claimed that an excerpt from the piece of research, which was completed in July 1997, is almost exactly the same as a thesis written by Ho Chia-yun (何佳芸) in July 1996, with only six words being different.
"How could it be possible? I am very self-disciplined when it comes to academic research. It's a very serious accusation," said the education minister after hearing that he was accused of academic plagiarism.
However, the acting Director of the Higher Education Department Chen Te-hua (
The opposition lawmakers also accused the public construction commission chairman, saying that a management research paper conducted by the official and funded by the NSC in 1993 closely resembled a thesis written by Tseng Teh-ming (曾德銘), a graduate student from the National Taiwan University, in July 1994.
The official denied the lawmakers' accusation by saying that he proposed the research first and it was not possible for the two papers to be completely the same.
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