The Ministry of Education (MOE) has budgeted NT$1.58 billion (US$50.97 million) for personnel training next year as part of its response to the government’s New Southbound Policy.
It also plans to spend NT$450 million on student recruitment and subsidies to increase the number of students from ASEAN and India, and to help Taiwanese students enter internships and research programs there.
Its long-term plans include subsidizing up to 10,000 students studying abroad by 2021 to increase the international competitiveness of Taiwanese students, the ministry said.
The number of foreign students at the nation’s higher education institutions hit a record 117,970 last year, ministry data showed.
Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter (姚立德) on Sunday said the ministry hoped to raise that number and was targeting a 20 percent annual increase in the number of students from ASEAN and India.
There are 41,000 students from ASEAN and India this year, and the ministry aims to increase that number to 50,000, he said.
The ministry also aims to send 5,000 Taiwanese students abroad next year, of whom 2,500 would take on internships and research projects in India and Southeast Asia, Yao said.
The ministry aims to increase the number of Taiwanese students in the region to 5,000 by 2021 — half of the total 10,000 it aims to send abroad by then — Yao added.
In another bid to boost ties with the region, the ministry would send 100 Mandarin teachers to Southeast Asia and India, Yao said, adding that they would also teach Taiwanese culture.
Meanwhile, the ministry would recruit 100 Southeast Asian and Indian instructors for doctoral studies in Taiwan, he said.
Wuu Dong-sing (武東星), a professor at National Chung Hsing University’s materials science and engineering department, said that ASEAN and India are indispensable markets for industrial growth and development.
Students who seek development opportunities in those countries would have an advantage when seeking jobs at Taiwanese and international companies that operate in the region, he said.
The ministry in June announced that starting next fall, Southeast Asian languages would be offered as electives in junior-high schools in a bid to improve cross-cultural understanding.
Students would be able to take Vietnamese, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Cambodian, Bahasa Malaysia or Filipino courses, the ministry said.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS