The Ministry of Education is to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) into elementary and middle-school education and expects Taiwan to become a leader in AI education in Asia within two years, Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said yesterday.
Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) and his team are dedicated to promoting AI education and have made a breakthrough by establishing the Taiwan AI College Alliance to improve AI education at universities, Yeh said.
High schools would also be offering AI courses, while elementary and junior-high schools would introduce a generative AI learning partner and hold AI competitions, Yeh said.
Photo courtesy of the Taichung City Government
The ministry said it commissioned National Taiwan Normal University’s Department of Technology Application and Human Resource Development associate professor Tsai Yun-cheng (蔡芸琤) and National Taiwan University’s Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering assistant professor Chang Jie-fan (張傑帆) to plan diverse elective AI courses for high-school students.
Yeh thanked Tsai and Chang for developing an online system to review students’ program codes and enhance distance learning, saying that they helped provide equal learning opportunities for high-school and vocational-school students nationwide.
Twenty-three high and vocational schools are participating in the program to offer elective AI courses this semester, including two from remote areas, he said.
The ministry also collaborated with National Cheng Kung University’s Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering professor Su Wen-yu (蘇文鈺) to organize an AI competition for junior-high and elementary-school students starting this year, he said.
The competition encourages students to apply AI models to real world challenges and is expected to expand as an online international competition, Yeh said, adding that an AI learning partner was introduced on the ministry’s Web site this month to narrow the learning gap between urban and rural areas.
The ministry last month also released its Digital Teaching Guidelines 3.0, to facilitate the participation of principals and parents in students’ digital learning process, he said.
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of