University tuition in Taiwan is cheaper than at other Asian institutions, giving Taiwanese schools an edge in the region’s education marketplace, a Reader’s Digest survey on higher education has found.
The survey, conducted for the fifth time last year, invited the magazine’s readers in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and China to take part in the online survey and received 2,618 valid responses.
The survey’s results, released yesterday, found that 70 percent of parents in Asia think that tuition and scholarships are important in choosing universities.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Taiwanese universities have an edge, Reader’s Digest said, because they are cheaper than their counterparts in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong and about the same price as universities in China, and they also offer scholarships.
Tuition at South Korean universities has soared in recent years and is now twice the average in Taiwan, while Japanese schools are three times as expensive as their Taiwanese counterparts, the report said.
Public universities in this nation charge less than NT$100,000 per semester, and that, along with increasing job opportunities in Asia, has induced some ethnic Chinese parents to send their children to Taiwan to get a university degree, according to the report.
Taiwanese schools also have the advantage of having their diplomas recognized by Malaysia, as of last year, and accepting students from Hong Kong without entry examinations.
They were also praised for their diverse and democratic teaching methods, the high employment rate of graduates and the quality of their teachers, the survey said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai