The Ministry of the Interior’s acquisition of a property last week under the now-closed Chung Chou University of Science and Technology marked the first such transfer to the government for alternative uses.
The property, including 60,745m2 of land and 12 buildings, was valued at NT$2.36 billion (US$74.48 million) and transferred to the ministry on Tuesday last week.
The property is likely to be used by the reservist forces and the Quick Response Forces under the Second Special Police Corps, it said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Ministry of Education’s Department of Technological and Vocational Education Deputy Director-General Ko Chin-wei (柯今尉) on Friday said that the board of the foundation that owns the building, eponymous with the school, had been disbanded by ministry order and replaced with an interim board formed by faculty and experts on July 31 last year.
The ministry said it is planning to use the property to provide self-defense and self-help classes and training on other defense-related affairs.
The ministry said it would continue to work with the interim board of the school to handle its properties and other assets.
Photo: CNA
In other news, the Ministry of Education (MOE) on Friday said the nation’s declining birthrate continues to affect the education sector, citing 47 schools’ opting to have the ministry “reserve” 3,171 student recruitment slots for the next academic year.
The MOE said that junior colleges and universities have “reserved” more than 50,000 recruitment slots with the ministry over the past three years, but only 1 percent of that reserved amount, about 500, has been redeemed.
Reserved recruitment slots mean there is a gap between the number of students an institution is allowed to enroll and the number it could enroll, meaning fewer than expected students are admitted.
Starting from 2014, the MOE has allowed schools to keep a certain number of ministry-approved quotas for student recruitment “in reserve”; for instance, schools allowed to recruit 100 students but assessed that they could only recruit 60 can “reserve” 40 student recruitment slots for later use.
The MOE said that while the recruitment slots remain “reserved” with the ministry, universities nationwide are reporting decreased enrollment.
Public universities have reserved 163 slots this year, while private universities reserved 452 slots, and 31 science and technology universities reserved 2,756, the ministry’s latest statistics showed.
Public universities reserved 334 slots this year, they showed, but the number is expected to rise to 520 in the next academic year, marking a record high.
On the other hand, private universities saw 5,564 reserved slots this year, but the number is expected to drop to 2,851 next year, the ministry said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon this morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan between Friday and Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The storm, which as of 8am was still 1,100km southeast of southern Taiwan, is currently expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, the CWA said. Because of its rapid speed — 28kph as of 8am — a sea warning for the storm could be issued tonight, rather than tomorrow, as previously forecast, the CWA said. In terms of its impact, Usagi is to bring scattered or
An orange gas cloud that leaked from a waste management plant yesterday morning in Taoyuan’s Guanyin District (觀音) was likely caused by acidic waste, authorities said, adding that it posed no immediate harm. The leak occurred at a plant in the district’s Environmental Science and Technology Park at about 7am, the Taoyuan Fire Department said. Firefighters discovered a cloud of unidentified orange gas leaking from a waste tank when they arrived on the site, it said, adding that they put on Level A chemical protection before entering the building. After finding there was no continuous leak, the department worked with the city’s Department
MESSAGE: The ministry said China and the Philippines are escalating regional tensions, and Taiwan should be included in dialogue mechanisms on an equal footing Taiwan has rejected renewed sovereignty claims over the South China Sea by the Philippines and China by reaffirming its sovereignty and rights under international law over the disputed area. “The Republic of China [ROC] enjoys all rights to island groups and their surrounding waters in the South China Sea in accordance with international law and maritime laws,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said in a statement yesterday. Other countries’ attempts to claim sovereignty over the South China Sea do not change the fact that the ROC holds sovereignty over the region, the ministry said. The MOFA statement came after
RSS