Petition launched to save the Taiwan-Paraguay Polytechnic University project

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Through the Change.org platform, an internet petition website for civic, reformist, social, and vindicating the fulfillment of human rights, a citizen identified as José Manuel Arce Martínez launched the following petition, entitled “Let’s save the education of our young people”:

“The Taiwan-Paraguay Polytechnic University was created in 2018 through law 6.096/18 by a bilateral agreement between the governments of Taiwan and Paraguay, whereby the government of Taiwan committed to giving resources, teaching staff, technologies, and equipment for a first-class university as it does not currently exist in the country.”

The petition says: “In exchange, the Paraguayan government committed to cede land for the construction of the necessary infrastructure. Until today, only the Taiwanese government has fulfilled its part, being our government in debt, not only with them, the Taiwanese, but especially with our Paraguayan youth, who have to wonder, begging for premises to be able to prepare themselves for a future. With that first world preparation, young people would come to contribute to the country with the knowledge they have acquired”.

In his petition, the citizen in question also stated that “today we have young people who left their homes to travel to Taiwan to continue their studies, who cannot do so in their own country due to lack of building infrastructure. Another group, the recently admitted, are giving classes in premises lent by the armed forces in the Tacumbú district”.

He concluded by stating the following: “I think it is tremendously unfair that having resources, and having carried out all the environmental studies, the beginning of the works destined to accommodate our children’s future continues to be delayed and postponed. There are resources; professionals carry out environmental impact studies, and the only thing missing is the political will to authorize the start of the works. Support us by signing this petition for the future of tertiary education and our children’s future”.

In this regard, the well-known economist and former Minister of Industry José Luis Rodríguez Tornaco affirmed through his Twitter account that “of the 136 hectares that make up the Guasu Park, Taiwanese and local urban planners design the Taiwan-Paraguay Polytechnic University complex in two hectares, which trains more than 480 compatriots in the academic elite”.

At the time of publication of this article, more than 1,100 people have already signed the aforementioned online petition.