On April 29, the Ministry of Education conducted a conference at CTU to update and provide guidance for a strategic regional association designed to coordinate and streamline subsidization of technical and vocational education in the central Taiwan region.
According to Professor Zhou Tian Cheng of the Ministry of Education (MOE), the association aims to coordinate the efforts of the region's senior high schools and vocational high schools with area universities, as well as to coordinate student projects and to promote industrial-academic cooperation.
Due to the association members' successful subsidization efforts in the past, the MOE has changed the previous system, in which schools had to apply to the MOE annually for subsidization funds, to a new system in which schools need to apply only once every three years. Zhou noted that the association members had received NT$4.5 million from the MOE in the past year through 13 subsidization plans.
Director Guo Jun Yin of the Ping He Community Development Society of Changhua County expressed his thanks to the MOE. He noted that the ministry's assistance allows students to display their artwork in local communities, improves the quality of teaching in area schools, and helps develop the local tourism industry.
Professor Tang Zhi Long of the MOE's Strategic Alliance Plan Research Committee noted that the new three-year application system is already in effect for the coming academic year, and he expressed his hope that three years from now, when the current subsidization round ends, the association can once more renew and expand its cooperative efforts.
The association consists of three institutes of higher learning – Chienkuo Technology University, the National Taichung Overseas Chinese Institute of Technology, and National Taichung Nursing College – as well as ten senior high schools and vocational senior high schools in the central Taiwan area: National Lu-Kang Senior High School, National Shiou Shuei Senior Industrial Vocational High School, National Beidou Senior Home Economic and Commercial Vocational High School, National Yeong-Jing Industrial Vocational High School, National Nantou Senior High School, National Nantou Commercial High School, Yuanlin Vocational School, National Erh Lin Industrial and Commercial Vocational High School, Zhi Yong Senior High School, and Da Der Commercial Technical Vocational School.
