The Executive Yuan announced today that Professor Liu Ching-chung of National Pingtung University of Education (NPUE) has been named the new deputy minister of the Hakka Affairs Council (HAC). Liu replaces Lee Chao-ming, who recently resigned from the post.
Liu has a Ph.D. in educational administration and foundations from Illinois State University in the U.S. At National Pingtung Teachers' College (predecessor of NPUE), he served as director of the Graduate Institute of Elementary and Secondary Education, and vice president and acting president of the college. After the college was renamed NPUE, he served as its president. Liu is currently a professor there, specializing in the study of local cultures and indigenous peoples.
During his time at NPUE, Liu founded the Graduate Institute of Hakka Culture to research and promote Hakka heritage. He once organized a poetry writing contest about the red bean—a specialty product of Pingtung County's Wandan Township—to merge the promotion of culture and industry. Liu also established the Indigenous Education Research Center at NPUE and collaborated with the government to create an undergraduate degree program in indigenous health, recreation and culture.
A learned scholar with extensive experience in educational administration, Liu is most befitting to serve the HAC and help carry out the agency's missions, said the Executive Yuan.