The Ministry of Education yesterday said that it plans to budget more than NT$200 million (US$6.4 million) this year to subsidize “customized” courses offered by vocational institutions to students from India and Southeast Asian countries, in an effort to promote the government’s “new southbound policy.”
The ministry cited schools that have been promoting exchanges with institutions in the regions over the past few years, calling on vocational colleges that are designing courses aimed at bringing their recruitment programs in line with the policy to model their programs after such examples.
Among the institutions cited by the ministry was Wufeng University, which has been offering mechanical engineering courses to Indian students.
Wufeng University president Su Ming-hung (蘇銘宏) said it teamed up with Far Eastern Machinery Co in 2013 to offer a program that accommodates the company’s needs.
As part of seven-year contracts with Far Eastern, Indian students spend their first year at the university learning Mandarin and basic concepts, followed by an internship at the company during their second through fourth years, Su said.
Students hired by the company after graduation receive monthly salaries of NT$37,619 or more — roughly equivalent to four times the average monthly wage in India — in the final three years of their contracts, in accordance with the minimum wage requirement for foreign workers, he said.
Of an initial group of 33 students who enrolled in the program, about one-third received job offers from Far Eastern, while the rest looked elsewhere for employment, Su said.
The ministry and the university have jointly invested NT$1.2 million to establish an incubator near a Far Eastern branch office in the industrial zone of Pune, India, to recruit high-school graduates, college students and employees of Taiwanese businesses who would like to receive more specialized training at the university, he said.
The university has requested a list of Taiwanese firms operating in the area from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to which it can supply the talent it cultivates, Su said, adding that the school hopes to diversify its curricula for Indian students by working with more companies.
Another example provided by the ministry was National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, which since 2015 has provided on-the-job training to 156 midwives, nurses and long-term caregivers from Indonesia, Singapore and Cambodia.
Training programs last from two weeks to two months, depending on their objectives, providing students with medical skills lacking in their home nations, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences official Lin Li-ju (林莉如) said.
While Taiwan’s healthcare system is considered more advanced, local students have benefited from intership programs in Southeast Asian countries, Lin said, citing as an example a program at a facility that treats diabetes patients in Kota Pontianak, Indonesia, in which students learn to treat wounds caused by diabetes with traditional therapies.
“Even though such therapies have not gained recognition in Western medicine, they really work,” Lin said, adding that on a trip to the facility, a group of students from the University of Tokyo were visiting to learn the therapies.
“I think this model for collaboration would be a good reference for Taiwanese medical universities, as it would help to broaden their horizons and allow them to learn from other nations,” she said.
The ministry also highlighted China University of Science and Technology, which has been training civilian aircraft technicians for Singapore Polytechnic since 2012.
China University of Science and Technology official Su Sheng-chu (蘇盛竹) said it was the first institution authorized by the Civil Aeronautics Administration to offer a training program in the field.
Taiwan has an advantage over its neighbors in terms of civilian aircraft maintenance, Su Sheng-chu said, adding that in recent years the number of Singapore Polytechnic students in the program has surpassed that of Chinese institutions.
China University of Science and Technology has begun talks with Thai and Philippine institutions interested in boosting their aircraft maintenance capabilities in the hopes of expanding the program, he added.
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