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.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry