An education fair featuring Taiwanese higher education was launched by the Ministry of Education in Los Angeles on Saturday, with the aim of attracting more foreign students to study in Taiwan.
Chen Hui-mei (陳惠美), chief executive of the ministry’s Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan, said the fair is designed to display the high quality of Taiwan’s higher eduction and entice more US and overseas Chinese students to pursue advanced studies in Taiwan.
Twelve Taiwan-based universities are taking part in the fair, while introductions to more than 130 Taiwanese colleges are available on the ministry’s Web site.
Chen said business management is currently the field most favored among foreign and overseas Chinese students studying in Taiwan, followed by studies related to engineering and social science.
However, she said that medicine-related studies provided by Taiwan- based universities and colleges are the most popular among inquirers in the US, which she attributed to Taiwan’s outstanding performance in the medical-related arena and its less expensive tuition fees.
About 78,000 foreign students are currently studying in Taiwan, according to ministry statistics, and Chen expressed hope of achieving a short-term goal of 100,000 by 2016 and a long-term goal of 150,000 in 2020.
There are about 3,500 US students in Taiwan currently, the sixth-highest source of foreign students in Taiwan, behind Malaysia, Japan, Macau, Hong Kong and Vietnam, the ministry said.
Citing the results of a survey conducted in May, Chen said that most foreign-based students choose to study in Taiwan because of its fine education quality and varied scholarships, good location in the region and good quality of life, as well as greater chances for pursuing advanced studies and landing jobs in their home countries after graduating from a Taiwanese university.
Surprisingly, the cheaper tuition is not among the considerations of foreign-based students, she said.
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