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.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
RSS