Does your university as a body have a policy that ensures that access to these activities is accessible to all, regardless of ethnicity, religion, disability or gender?

To ensure promotion of the publicity of higher education, our university has no restrictions on race, religion, disability, or gender. In addition, we provide preferential policies and fee exemptions, education fund subsidies, or related study and career counseling for relatively disadvantaged groups such as those with economic disadvantages, special family situations, physical and mental disabilities, and aborigines, to guarantee education opportunities for disadvantaged students with various identities and to promote social class mobility.

Cooperation to promote the publicity of higher education and to exert the influence of our university: At present, the proportion of disadvantaged students in our university is about 10%, of which 1.81% are aboriginal students, so the strategies for enrolling disadvantaged students can be further strengthened. In addition, previous community services held by our university were mainly education supports for remote rural areas. In the future, we will combine local community resources, expand the learning fields, apply our knowledge to serve the community, and cultivate students’ sentiment of diversified solicitude and their capability of related actions.

The proportion of disadvantaged students increased in our university; a diversified guidance and support system was perfected; ‘local identification’ MOOCs courses were promoted to jointly explore local issues and strengthen the connection with local institutions; and information on education programmes was published and regularly updated to fulfil the university social responsibilities (USR).

I. Our practice in ensuring equal education opportunities and demonstrating our social responsibilities

In addition to actively providing education opportunities for disadvantaged students, our university improved the comprehensive living and study support system for disadvantaged students during their school years, so that students can concentrate on their studies with peace of mind. We also invested resources to provide care and services in various social respects to fully perform our university social responsibilities.

Our university can provide education opportunities for disadvantaged students

1. We encourage all departments to actively provide quotas to increase education opportunities for disadvantaged students.

(1) In recent years, our university has actively provided additional quotas for aboriginals and students with physical and mental disabilities to enter our university through different channels.

(2) To encourage all departments to actively provide disadvantaged students with additional quotas, the ‘Admission Committee Setting and Promotion Measures’ of our university stipulates that an additional business fee calculated by the number of actually enrolled students via additional quotas (including mainland students, overseas Chinese students, foreign students, students with physical and mental disorders, and aboriginals) multiplied by NTD 5,000 will be provided to the departments as an encouragement.

(3) To fully take care of disadvantaged students, at the second stage of ‘individual application’ in the 2018 academic year, we added measures to support disadvantaged students, with a total of 10 departments (faculties) providing 12 quotas for disadvantaged students, giving priority to low-income families, middle-to-low-income families and children with special family situations, and relaxing the screening criteria at the second stage.

2. Reducing the burden of exam participation for disadvantaged students – exemption from registration fees and transportation fee subsidies for ‘individual application’

(1) Our university exempts registration fees of self-run admission examinations for economically disadvantaged students (low-income families and middle-to-low-income families), including the ‘second-stage screening examinations for individual application for a bachelor’s degree’, ‘school transfer examinations for the bachelor’s programmes’, ‘recommendation screening and admission examinations for postgraduate and doctoral programmes’, ‘bachelor’s programmes especially for students with physical and mental disabilities’, and ‘screening review and admission selection for four-year technical and two-year vocational programmes’.

(2) At the second stage of the ‘individual application’, our university provides a transportation fee subsidy of NTD150-1,000 depending on the student’s place of residence and requires all departments to dispense the subsidy to eligible candidates on the day of examination.

3. Support measures for disadvantaged students

To support disadvantaged students to enter the university smoothly and concentrate on their studies, our university actively raised funds and formulated various supporting measures to improve the assistance mechanism for disadvantaged students. Preferential policies for disadvantaged students can be divided into two categories: poverty alleviation (tuition and miscellaneous fee subsidy) and emergency (emergency assistance subsidy and campus meal coupons).

(1) Strict compliance with stipulations on tuition and miscellaneous fee subsidy by the Ministry of Education

The reduction and exemption items include tuition fees, miscellaneous fees, credit fees, and the base amount of tuition and miscellaneous fees. The various tuition and miscellaneous fee reduction and exemption items are for students from low-income families and middle-to-low-income families, students with physical and mental disabilities, children of disabled persons, aboriginal students, children with special family situations, children of deceased military, public service and educational personnel, and children of active military personnel; the education aid programme for disadvantaged college and university students is for students with an annual family income of less than NTD 700,000.

(2) Active fundraising for emergency assistance subsidy and campus meal coupons

To motivate students from financially difficult families to study hard, cultivate their self-confidence and self-reliance values, reduce their living pressure during their school days, and help them study with peace of mind, our university implements the following solicitude measures: ‘Key Points for Implementation of Student Emergency Assistance Subsidy’, ‘Key Points for Handling Applications for Emergency Assistance Subsidy and Campus Meal Coupons of Mr. Wang Jinping’s Care Programme for Students in Financial Difficulty’, ‘Key Points for Handling Applications for Student Emergency Assistance Subsidies of the White Sand Culture and Education Foundation’ and ‘Distribution Methods for Love Meal Coupons’. From 2015 to 2017, a total of NTD 3.68 million yuan was raised and distributed.

II. Our practice in demonstrating our social responsibilities

To fulfill the university social responsibilities, our university encourages all units to actively set up research and service centers or implement special programmes according to their characteristics and specialties, work with the community (district) to invest in local care, talent cultivation or environmental protection, and care for disadvantaged and special education groups.

1. Helping to improve science education quality in primary and secondary schools in the central region

In recent years, the Science Education Center of our university has cooperated with the K-12 Education Administration of the Ministry of Education to implement white papers on science education in primary and secondary schools and to strengthen the research, promotion, study, and guidance of science education in primary and secondary schools and has undertaken affairs related to guidance and promotion of science education in the central region. In addition, the Changhua Office of Yuan T. Lee Foundation Science Education for All was established in the Jin-De Campus of our university. A professor of the Department of Physics serves as the director of the office. The summer science camp was held during summer vacation, and winter science camp was held during winter vacation. In addition to ordinary students, students with vision and hearing impairments were recruited, and home delivery of science education was held in the semester (a semester included about 16 weeks of classes), providing more science learning resources for students in the central region, and fulfilling the responsibilities of a national university in the joint efforts to promote national science education.

2. Continuous promotion of environmental education theories and practice

To promote the development of academic and practical work in environmental education, our university has set up an ‘Environmental Education Center’, which was approved by the Environmental Protection Administration of the Executive Yuan as an environmental education certification body in December 2016. The center has a cross-disciplinary and cross-school faculty team. The main task is to implement relevant plans of the Environmental Protection Administration, Ministry of Education, or Ministry of Science and Technology (such as Solenopsis invicta and Forcipomyia Taiwana control, wetland ecological conservation, biodiversity education, and low carbon green energy), and 33-hour seminars and 120-hour training courses are also run to cultivate talents in environmental resources and ecology conservation. In addition, it also guides and assists high-quality development of local environmental protection communities, to fulfil the university social responsibilities; guides and assists local sites to pass certifications of environmental education institutions; and expands industry-university cooperation to sustain environmental resources.

3. Long-term commitment to arousing the physical and mental potential in groups with physical and mental disabilities and gifted groups

The Special Education Center of our university provides special education consulting and guidance services for students and faculty members of our university, as well as county and city governments, special education schools (classes), and social welfare institutions in the region.

4. Improving the quality of life of people with physical and mental disabilities in the central region with efficient and professional treatment services

The Behavioral Guidance Research and Development Center of our university applies the rationales and principles of behaviour analysis to conduct one-to-one intensive treatment throughout to promote all-round effective interventions in the analysis, assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation of people with physical and mental disabilities. It also provides training for professionals in domestic institutions and spreads treatment knowledge to the Changhua community, fulfilling its university social responsibilities. The centre's services are for people with physical and mental disabilities with household registration in the Changhua region who have a physical and mental disability handbook or a physical and mental disability certificate\ and require behavioral guidance due to mental retardation and autism that seriously influence their adaption to life according to a long-term assessment. It also actively bided for the ‘Physical and Mental Disability Behavior Guidance Service Plan’ of the Changhua County Government. The amount spent for implementation of the plan from 2016 to 2017 was as high as NTD 18.06 million.

5. Establishment of a career reconstruction service base for people with physical and mental disabilities in the Taichung-Changhua-Nantou region

To integrate relevant service resources for career reconstruction in the central region, train special personnel, establish a network of professional guidance service resources for career reconstruction, and improve the effectiveness and service quality of professional services related to career reconstruction, the Taichung-Changhua-Nantou Branch of the Workforce Development Agency entrusted our university to establish the ‘Career Reconstruction Service Resource Center for the Physically and Mentally Disabled in the Taichung-Changhua-Nantou region’. By linking administrative resources in the Taichung-Changhua-Nantou region, the centre develops local service features and promotes the integration of career reconstruction resources in the Taichung-Changhua-Nantou region to effectively help local governments solve the problems and dilemmas of career reconstruction services for the physically and mentally disabled.

6. Promoting the development of counseling expertise and providing mental health services in the central region

In order to provide services related to mental health for people in the central region, our university established the ‘Community Mental Counseling and Potential Development Center’ in 1994 by integrating the professional resources of the Department of Guidance and Counseling. In recent years, we have held mental health programmes for the Changhua County Fire Bureau, National Yuanlin Home-Economics and Commercial Vocational Senior High School, and Nursing Department of Changhua Christian Hospital, and implemented the Honorary Care Taker Growth Training programme of Taiwan Changhua District Prosecutors Office; various workshops and academic seminars were also held to provide practical training for professional mental counsellors and to link professional resources to enable professional workers in the central region to continue to grow and develop.

7. Long-term recording of audio textbooks to protect visually impaired people’s right to learning

For the purpose of widening the knowledge fields of visually impaired people, since 1989, our university has undertaken a special programme for the Ministry of Education to record audio textbooks in the humanities and social sciences, which provides audio textbooks for visually impaired students in junior high schools and primary schools, and students with mental and physical disabilities in colleges and universities to help them adapt to their studies, increases supplementary teaching materials for students with physical and mental disabilities to learn synchronously with their peers, improves the learning outcomes of students with physical and mental disabilities at all stages of education, and implements the teaching goal of barrier-free education for special education students.

8. Setting up the aboriginal resource center to protect the learning right of aboriginal students

As of October 2017, our university has 108 aboriginal students. In October 2017, the Aboriginal Student Resource Center was set up. It is expected to provide more systematic guidance for aboriginal students' studies, living, and employment to ensure their equal opportunity of education.

https://stc.ncue.edu.tw/