Ten private and public colleges and universities have either been failed or put on probation for not reaching a standard set by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council (HEEAC), the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The independent evaluation group said the institutions have one month to appeal the results. So far only two of the 10 institutions have said they are planning to appeal. The rest acknowledged their shortcomings and said they would try to raise their educational standards.
NATIONWIDE
The two-day evaluations were conducted between March and May this year at more than 242 academic departments at the 10 private and public universities across the nation.
It was found that more than 22.7 percent of the departments should be put on probation and 11.2 percent failed the evaluation.
Head of the ministry's Department of Higher Education, Ho Chou-fei (
"All departments that have probationary status are not allowed to expand enrolment or establish a graduate program in the 2008-2009 school year and those that have failed evaluation must reduce enrolment by half," he said, adding departments face being shutdown should they fail next year's evaluation.
HEEAC official Wu Ching-shan (
NO RANKINGS
The evaluation was conducted on a fail/pass basis and no rankings were made, he said.
The universities that were evaluated were Chuang Shan Medical University, Alethia University, Chung Hua University, Diwan University, National Ilan University, National Kaoshiung Universtiy, I-Shou University, National Chiayi University, Toko University and Hsingkuo University of Management.
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
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The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
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