Much work is needed to improve the amount and quality of student housing, members of the National Students’ Union of Taiwan (NSUT) said yesterday.
The group made the remarks during a forum in Taipei cohosted by the Ministry of Education and the NSUT to discuss the campus dorm issue.
Students and representatives from more than 50 colleges nationwide attended the event.
Photo: Chiu Chih-ju, Taipei Times
Since last month, the NSUT has been conducting surveys on the opinions of university student associations regarding student housing, it said.
The survey found a lack of housing and storage space, and poor privacy and soundproofing, were among the areas that students believed needed improvement, it said.
In communal spaces, the general consensus was that kitchen and dining facilities were the most lacking, it said.
Most students said that beyond being places of residence, dormitories should serve to help students make life adjustments, develop relationships and learn about democracy, among other functions, it said.
NSUT president Tao Han (陶漢) said he hoped that the government would invest more in dormitories.
Dormitories could be managed by students and teachers, who could work together to draft dormitory policies focused on students’ lives and learning, he added.
In a statement issued after the forum, the ministry said it proposed a NT$5 billion (US$163,34 million) plan in May to “build a new dormitory environment for the young generation.”
The plan would include rent subsidies for disadvantaged students living off-campus, the creation of off-campus social housing for students, construction loans for on-campus dormitory buildings and design improvements for on-campus dormitories, the ministry said.
The five-year plan was approved by the Executive Yuan in August and launched by the president last month, it said.
The first phase of the plan, which runs through 2023, is expected to add 30,000 beds to dormitories on and off campus, it said, adding that they are also renovating dormitories with 64,000 beds in them.
The plan would help 13,000 disadvantaged students renting off campus, it said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS