The Ministry of Education (MOE) on Thursday said that it would investigate allegations by a teachers’ union that students from Eswatini, the nation’s only diplomatic ally in Africa, had been forced into exploitative “internships” after enrolling in a work-study program at Mingdao University in Changhua County.
The ministry said that in 2018, the university had recruited about 40 students for a four-year work-study scholarship program, promising them the opportunity to develop off-campus work skills and experience while completing a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
In a recruitment brochure, the university offered applicants a range of financial inducements, while touting the program as “ultra-affordable.”
In November 2018, Swazi media reported that the students were being forced to work 40 hours per week peeling chicken skins in a refrigerated factory in exchange for their lessons and accommodation.
Following the incident, the ministry ordered the university to cancel the students’ employment contracts and assist them in returning to a full class schedule.
It also reduced the university’s international student recruitment quota for the 2019-2020 academic year, the ministry said.
The students remained enrolled and were given tuition discounts, grants for living expenses and assistance in finding legitimate internship opportunities, it said.
However, earlier this year, the students reported that Mingdao University had reduced their financial benefits and imposed new minimum work requirements for their internships or other “service learning” activities, the ministry said.
University president Kuo Chu-hsun (郭秋勳) held a news conference on Thursday last week with five of the students, who said that the work conditions did not amount to labor abuse.
However, in a letter to the ministry on Tuesday, the Union of Private School Educators said that the university took the international students’ wages in the form of monthly “donations” from the factories where they worked, and used only a portion of that money to offset their tuition and expenses.
The union pointed to the school’s publicly available donation records from 2012 to 2018, which it urged the ministry to investigate.
Union president Yu Jung-hui (尤榮輝) said that the university had forced the students into “fake internships” without any form of oversight, and had damaged Taiwan’s reputation.
Rather than try to “cover up” the university’s behavior, the ministry should ban it from recruiting international students for the coming school year, Yu said.
University secretary-general and director of human resources Chan Kuo-hua (詹國華) on Wednesday said that there is no connection between international students’ tuition and corporate donations.
The discounts offered to the Swazi students — including semester tuition of NT$10,000, compared with the standard rate of about NT$50,000 — add up to far more than companies donate to the school, he said.
Regarding the labor abuse allegations, Chan said that under the original program, students studied three days on campus and worked three days at internships every week.
The university suspended that arrangement on orders from the ministry, he added.
As many international students still need employment to afford their expenses, the university allowed them to voluntarily choose internships from a screened list of employers, with a limit of 20 work hours per week, Chan said.
The internships are arranged between students and the employers, without involvement from the university or employment brokers, and are in compliance with Taiwanese labor law, he said.
The ministry said that it is illegal for universities to use brokers to recruit international students or arrange work for them.
Schools that breach the law would face severe penalties, it said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS