TAIPEI: More than one in three universities and colleges in Taiwan are likely to be forced to close by 2021 due to a shortage of students as the island's birth rates continue to fall, local media said yesterday.

Currently, around 300,000 residents are eligible to apply for tertiary education each year, but the number is expected to drop to 195,000 in 2021, the Liberty Times said, citing the education affairs authorities.

In 12 years, more than one-third of Taiwan's 164 institutions of higher learning are expected to have closed because they will not be able to enroll enough students, causing about 1,000 members of faculty to lose their jobs, the report said.

Educational officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.

Taiwan's birth rates have been on a steady decline in recent years, and last year there were fewer than nine newborn babies for every 1,000 women of reproductive age, according to the internal affairs authorities.

This is about one-third the rate in neighboring Philippines, but higher than the 7.62 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age in Hong Kong - the lowest among 224 regions surveyed in a CIA study.

Niger has the highest rate, with more than 51 births per 1,000 women of reproductive age per year, or a lifetime average of about 7.4 children per Nigerian woman, compared to a lifetime average of 1.12 children per woman in Taiwan.

When the overall emigration, immigration, death and birth rates are jointly considered, Taiwan has a population growth rate of only 0.238 percent per year.

Education affairs chief Wu Ching-ji was quoted by the paper as saying his department is considering measures for colleges to merge or become private for-profit learning institutes.

Taipei has been offering various incentives in a bid to boost fertility rates amid growing concerns that a severe manpower shortage will hurt the economy.

Health authorities have said the declining birth rate reflects decisions among many women to marry at an older age, to stay single or remain childless.

China Daily - AFP

(HK Edition 10/14/2009 page2)