Provide young students with a better learning environment! The Ministry of Education has been successful in promoting the renovation of university dormitories. Today, it held a new dormitory sports exhibition "There is a dormitory like this, when will you go home?", gathering 52 dormitory renovation and new construction cases from 41 universities in Taiwan. When attending the opening ceremony of the exhibition, Executive Dean Zhuo Yongtai pointed out that the government has invested 6.2 billion yuan to improve 55,000 beds, and will continue to advance step by step, hoping that students will have a comfortable space to rest and study; in addition, it will also reduce the burden on young people through rental subsidies, private university tuition subsidies, etc. The government prioritizes policies related to youth, because the future of young people is the future of the country.
The Ministry of Education has been promoting the "New Generation Student Accommodation Environment Improvement Plan" since 2019, working together with universities, design teams and students to improve dormitory facilities and public spaces based on actual life. It is not just hardware updates or environmental beautification, but also involves student needs, campus governance and overall university development. Today, in addition to exhibiting the results, university presidents, experts and scholars, and young students were also invited to the "New Dormitory Movement Summit Forum" to share relevant experiences and insights.
Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao said in his speech that he has always believed that "space is a teacher who cannot speak." Starting from 2019, universities in Taiwan are changing, starting with the new dormitory movement. Dormitories are no longer just places to sleep, but also places to live, study, and even discuss with each other. Through movements, college students have more autonomy. Through space transformation, just like the dormitories of Harvard and Cambridge, one corridor is filled with students from different fields, allowing cross-field subject knowledge to collide. It can bring out the spirit of "garage entrepreneurship" in the United States, and there will be endless possibilities in the future.
Legislator Wu Siyao mentioned in her speech that dormitories are not just a place to live, but also a good place to live, so resources are invested; dormitories should not just be a place to sleep and surf the Internet, so the design extends the perspective from the dormitory to the public space; the dormitory should not be a place where the school manages students, but a place to support students to have a better campus life. Therefore, the promotion in the past 10 years has been to first loosen regulations so that the Ministry of Education can subsidize schools to build and renovate dormitories, which is applicable to public, private, and general technical and vocational schools. In addition, it has also made breakthroughs in procurement thinking to give good designs a chance to be used. More importantly, students are the main body, and students' opinions are given priority during renovation.
Zhuo Rongtai pointed out in his speech that he was very happy to see that a policy initiated by the members and planned one by one by the Executive Yuan has come to fruition. Since the start of school in September this year, students have begun to unpack dormitories, thinking they are in a high-end hotel. This is also the implementation of President Lai's political views during the election. 6.2 billion yuan has been invested to improve 55,000 beds. However, only 20% of the buildings have been renovated so far. We hope to carry out other projects step by step in the future so that students can rest and study in a more comfortable space. In addition, the government also has policies for young people such as housing subsidies, rental subsidies, and tuition subsidies of NT$35,000 for private college students. These are all aimed at reducing the burden on young people. At the same time, the government continues to send young people abroad for internships through the "Youth Ten Billion Overseas Dream Plan".
