The Ministry of Education is to introduce semiconductor courses into high-school curricula, with five pilot courses to be selected this year, a professor who is helping implement the program said yesterday.
The ministry has invited teachers who have taught semiconductor-related courses at the high-school level to help it develop a curriculum that will be used for the program.
One aim of the program would be to increase the interest of high-school students in choosing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) programs at university, National Taiwan Normal University Affiliated Senior High School teacher Hung Yi-wen (洪逸文) said.
Photo courtesy of Hung Yi-wen
The program is to focus on six areas: electrical science, semiconductor principles, the semiconductor manufacturing process, applications of semiconductors in daily life, circuit design and social issues related to the semiconductor industry, he said.
“Current courses on semiconductors are mostly developed by university professors, so the content might be too difficult for high-school students,” he said.
Teachers who have field experience in semiconductors would help design course content that is more appropriate for high-school students, he said.
The semiconductor industry encompasses three main areas — integrated circuit design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing, Hung said, adding that Taiwan accounts for the majority of these processes worldwide.
Taiwan has achieved its dominance in the industry through a semiconductor ecosystem in which industry-leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) works with other Taiwanese companies to form a supply chain.
“Course structure and content for this program will all be designed flexibly, and can be adjusted according to the characteristics of students and teaching needs,” he said.
Citing an example, Hung said the program could make use of six-week or 12-week “micro courses,” and that teachers could even use the material as supplementary material when teaching general subjects.
The program designers would record online teaching videos and students could study them independently, if they wished to do so, he said.
National Chi Nan University president Wuu Dong-sing (武東星) said that in the interest of cultivating talent for the semiconductor industry, interdisciplinary courses that promote inquiry into related subjects should be implemented at the primary and secondary-school levels.
This would help prepare students for interdisciplinary STEM subjects, such as digital systems and artificial intelligence, he said.
“The cultivation of cross-disciplinary talents is a new trend. We are also starting to see more female students who take electrical engineering as their second discipline,” National Taiwan Normal University professor Lin Kun-yi (林坤誼) said.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS