The Ministry of Education (MOE) should investigate politicians whose education credentials have come under scrutiny to uphold the integrity of academia, Changhua County Councilor Huang Sheng-lu (黃盛祿) said on Thursday.
Huang’s comments followed allegations that Kaohsiung mayoral by-election candidate Jane Lee (李眉蓁) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had plagiarized 96 percent of her master’s thesis.
Academia and politicians serve each other, as politicians need higher education to win greater support, while universities reap political and economic benefits from having alumni in politics, Huang said.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
Huang cited former KMT legislator Yu Yueh-hsia (游月霞) as an example, saying that she only had a vocational high school degree prior to serving as a lawmaker, and after her election, she earned a master’s degree in administrative management from National Changhua Normal University.
Union of Private School Educators president Yu Jung-hui (尤榮輝) said that Taiwan’s higher education system is showing signs of commercialization, especially in master’s degree courses offered to working people.
He said that the intent of the program — allowing people to pursue a degree while working — was good, but such programs run the risk of rubber-stamping academic degrees.
Universities are pandering to part-time students, lowering standards so they can more easily complete studies and obtain degrees, he said.
Working people have less time for studies or to write a thesis in addition to their full-time jobs, leading to the appearance of “essay mills,” where students turn in theses on topics that are incompatible with their subject of study or resorting to outright plagiarism, Yu Jung-hui said.
Schools need students and the students — who are often politicians, government officials and business executives — need the degree to “gold-plate” their credentials, he said.
Professors are prone to employ lax grading standards for these types of students, as politicians could expand their social network or provide economic benefits for their school or department, he said.
Yu Jung-hui said that these programs must institute tougher standards to prevent universities from helping to create fraudulent academic credentials and being seen as degree peddlers.
He added that the public and the ministry should address the deterioration of morals in higher education.
Over the past five years, there have been 17 incidents in which educational degrees have been revoked due to thesis plagiarism, the ministry said.
The university and professors should take responsibility for the issue, the ministry said, adding that how a university prevents incidents would be important when the ministry reviews universities’ applications for new colleges, student recruitment programs or government subsidies.
The ministry said that in the most extreme cases, it could refuse departments that have failed to institute measures to prevent plagiarism from applying for subsidies.
The ministry said that it is considering establishing a digital comparison system that would use the National Central Library’s archived theses database as a source, adding that the system could assist universities in identifying plagiarism.
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) is to begin his one-year alternative military service tomorrow amid ongoing legal issues, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. Wang, who last month was released on bail of NT$150,000 (US$4,561) as he faces charges of allegedly attempting to evade military service and forging documents, has been ordered to report to Taipei Railway Station at 9am tomorrow, the Alternative Military Service Training and Management Center said. The 33-year-old would join about 1,300 other conscripts in the 263rd cohort of general alternative service for training at the Chenggong Ling camp in Taichung, a center official told reporters. Wang would first
MINOR DISRUPTION: The outage affected check-in and security screening, while passport control was done manually and runway operations continued unaffected The main departure hall and other parts of Terminal 2 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport lost power on Tuesday, causing confusion among passengers before electricity was fully restored more than an hour later. The outage, the cause of which is still being investigated, began at about midday and affected parts of Terminal 2, including the check-in gates, the security screening area and some duty-free shops. Parts of the terminal immediately activated backup power sources, while others remained dark until power was restored in some of the affected areas starting at 12:23pm. Power was fully restored at 1:13pm. Taoyuan International Airport Corp said in a
RSS