There were more than 110,000 overseas students enrolled at Taiwanese universities last year, accounting for 8.27 percent of the nation’s university student population, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The number of foreign students rose by 16,537 last year to 110,182, according to ministry statistics.
Department of International and Cross-strait Education section head Liu Su-miao (劉素妙) said last year’s surge “caught us by surprise” and she attributed it mainly to 7,000 more Chinese students.
It also reflected more aggressive recruiting efforts overseas by local universities, which have been hit by declining enrollment by Taiwanese students because of the nation’s low birth rate over the past two decades, Liu said.
The figures also show that the ministry’s objective to increase the number of foreign students from 30,000 in 2008 to more than 100,000 this year had been met.
The government’s aim is to turn Taiwan into an “advanced learning powerhouse” in the Asia-Pacific region, Liu said.
Ministry statistics also showed that the number of foreign students pursuing advanced degrees increased by 6,000 last year.
Foreign students mainly come from Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam, in that order.
There was also a sharp increase in the number of students from India, Indonesia and Myanmar, Liu said, adding that her department expects to further diversify its sources of students in the future and hopes to recruit 150,000 foreign students a year by 2021.
The ministry said that Taiwan has built a reputation for having a friendly learning environment after easing regulations on overseas students, offering more scholarships and promoting a counseling system.
The focus now would be to encourage overseas students to remain in Taiwan to work after graduation and give the nation’s private sector more access to overseas graduates, it said.
The German city of Hamburg on Oct. 14 named a bridge “Kaohsiung-Brucke” after the Taiwanese city of Kaohsiung. The footbridge, formerly known as F566, is to the east of the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, and connects the Dar-es-Salaam-Platz to the Brooktorpromenade near the Port of Hamburg on the Elbe River. Timo Fischer, a Free Democratic Party member of the Hamburg-Mitte District Assembly, in May last year proposed the name change with support from members of the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Union. Kaohsiung and Hamburg in 1999 inked a sister city agreement, but despite more than a quarter-century of
Taiwanese officials are courting podcasters and influencers aligned with US President Donald Trump as they grow more worried the US leader could undermine Taiwanese interests in talks with China, people familiar with the matter said. Trump has said Taiwan would likely be on the agenda when he is expected to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) next week in a bid to resolve persistent trade tensions. China has asked the White House to officially declare it “opposes” Taiwanese independence, Bloomberg reported last month, a concession that would mark a major diplomatic win for Beijing. President William Lai (賴清德) and his top officials
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday expressed “grave concerns” after Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) reiterated the city-state’s opposition to “Taiwanese independence” during a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang (李強). In Singapore on Saturday, Wong and Li discussed cross-strait developments, the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Prime Minister Wong reiterated that Singapore has a clear and consistent ‘one China’ policy and is opposed to Taiwan independence,” it said. MOFA responded that it is an objective fact and a common understanding shared by many that the Republic of China (ROC) is an independent, sovereign nation, with world-leading
‘ONE CHINA’: A statement that Berlin decides its own China policy did not seem to sit well with Beijing, which offered only one meeting with the German official German Minister for Foreign Affairs Johann Wadephul’s trip to China has been canceled, a spokesperson for his ministry said yesterday, amid rising tensions between the two nations, including over Taiwan. Wadephul had planned to address Chinese curbs on rare earths during his visit, but his comments about Berlin deciding on the “design” of its “one China” policy ahead of the trip appear to have rankled China. Asked about Wadephul’s comments, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said the “one China principle” has “no room for any self-definition.” In the interview published on Thursday, Wadephul said he would urge China to
RSS