My thanks to Prof. Peter Osborne of Donghua University for his opinion piece, "Internationalizing Higher Education," which was published in the Taipei Times, July 24 (2010) edition. While I cannot agree with or support everything Prof. Osborne stated regarding the inadequacy of Taiwan's university system regarding "internationalization of education," there is one item that I am in total agreement with:
"At meetings I see some foreign professors proficient in Chinese, English and their subject of expertise who perform the same job with equal competency as their Taiwanese counterparts, yet these same foreign professors are not legally entitled to the pensions their Taiwanese colleagues are, despite making equal contributions to government taxes, health and pension schemes. Where is the internationalism in exploiting a worker based on their nationality?"
Prof. Osborne has pointed out legalized discrimination, but unfortunately too few of our Taiwanese colleagues--those who have the real power to rectify this gross injustice--either don't know about this or don't care. They don't realize that when they retire after full time service in national universities, they are entitled to monthly pension payments that I as a permanent resident am not entitled to.
With this sort of injustice built into the system, I wonder that Taiwan's universities are able to attract intelligent candidates from overseas at all. this is a wrong that must be put right, not only for the benefit of our international scholars, but for the benefit of Taiwan's academia as well.
"At meetings I see some foreign professors proficient in Chinese, English and their subject of expertise who perform the same job with equal competency as their Taiwanese counterparts, yet these same foreign professors are not legally entitled to the pensions their Taiwanese colleagues are, despite making equal contributions to government taxes, health and pension schemes. Where is the internationalism in exploiting a worker based on their nationality?"
Prof. Osborne has pointed out legalized discrimination, but unfortunately too few of our Taiwanese colleagues--those who have the real power to rectify this gross injustice--either don't know about this or don't care. They don't realize that when they retire after full time service in national universities, they are entitled to monthly pension payments that I as a permanent resident am not entitled to.
With this sort of injustice built into the system, I wonder that Taiwan's universities are able to attract intelligent candidates from overseas at all. this is a wrong that must be put right, not only for the benefit of our international scholars, but for the benefit of Taiwan's academia as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment