Minister of Education Wu Ching-chi (吳清基) yesterday urged college students nationwide to review their attitude toward learning after a ministry evaluator criticized students at the nation’s top medical school, calling them undisciplined.
Wu’s remark came after Daisy Hung (洪蘭), director of National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in an article published in the Chinese-language CommonWealth magazine recently that during a ministry inspection trip at National Taiwan University’s (NTU) College of Medicine, she saw students arrive late for classes, doze off, eat instant noodles or drumsticks, watch TV on their laptops or send text messages to their friends during class.
Hung, an NTU alumni, said she was very surprised to find that the students did not respect their classmates or the teachers.
“With college student attitudes like these, how are we going to compete with others?” Hung said in the article. “If you don’t want to study hard, why not yield the opportunity of learning to other people who really want to learn?”
Offering support to the criticism made by Hung, Wu said many professors had complained that students in Taiwan had become less hard-working, with the majority of students staying up late and deliberately not attending classes early in the morning.
Wu said college students in Taiwan should cherish the opportunity to learn since the government has spent a large amount of money funding higher education.
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