Government watchdog censures education ministry over foreign student's death

Taipei, Sept. 3 (CNA) The Control Yuan censured the Ministry of Education on Tuesday over its failure to ensure the safety of students interning in the private sector as part of academia-enterprise collaborative programs following the death of a Vietnamese student last year.

The Control Yuan cited an incident on May 17, 2023 at a pastry company factory in the New Taipei Industrial Park in which a Vietnamese student from the Lee-Ming Institute of Technology was crushed to death by a loaded 1.8-meter-high dough cart that weighed over 100 kilograms.

The student was interning at the factory through a special program aimed at boosting collaboration between universities and the private sector under the government's New Southbound Policy, the Control Yuan said.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Control Yuan members Wang Yu-ling (王幼玲) and Wang Mei-yu (王美玉) presented screenshots of surveillance camera footage showing the student trying to push the cart up a short ramp while another intern was assisting by pulling the cart from the other side.

The cart then slid toward the student and fell, crushing her to death, Wang Yu-ling said.

One day after the incident, the New Taipei Labor Standards Inspection Office conducted an on-site inspection, determining there was a "failure to take prevention measures" -- for example, by using a more suitable cart or loading the dough differently.

It ruled out that the two individuals moving the cart had adopted "unsafe practices" and that the company was responsible. The company's proprietor was referred to the New Taipei District Prosecutors' Office for an investigation over an occupational accident leading to death.

At Tuesday's press event, the two Control Yuan members cited the education ministry's failure to tender a draft student internship bill despite having begun work in April 2017 as one of the reasons for the censuring.

In addition, the ministry's evaluation form, which universities filled in with details on companies being considered to run a student intern program, was a formality, the members said, adding that the ministry did not rate premises on their occupational safety.

Citing the pastry company, Wang Yu-ling said before the incident it received a near-perfect score in the evaluation, which provided grounds for the school's initial refusal in July 2023 to replace the company over the incident.

However, she said, the office's inspection of the company's premises in May 2023 found 13 violations under the Occupational Safety and Health Act.

This highlighted that even though the ministry forwarded registers of companies selected for academia-enterprise internship programs to local labor authorities, there was still a failure to eliminate companies with poor track records of occupational safety standards, she added.

Although the ministry claimed it ordered the company to make necessary improvements after the incident, the Control Yuan members launched a surprise inspection at the pastry factory on Jan. 26 this year and found other potential occupational hazards. These included no signs next to ovens warning people of high temperatures and walk-in freezers that could only be opened from the outside.

The two members said after the interns were finally transferred to another pastry company after voicing grave concern, they found that the same type of dough cart that killed the Vietnamese student was also used at that company's factory, which showed the ministry had been negligent of the safety of interns.

In response, the ministry said it has ordered universities to evaluate the occupational safety of company premises where student internship programs will take place to make sure they conform to safety standards.