The Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) said yesterday it will join the business sector and offer 120 full scholarships annually for select students to study abroad to enhance the nation's talent pool.
The scholarships will come from a foundation to be established by the CEPD with donations from local industries.
Twenty scholarships will be offered for students to pursue doctorates, 50 to pursue master's degrees and 50 to conduct one-year research programs at prestigious foreign academic institutions.
In addition, the foundation will offer low-interest loans for at least 250 other outstanding students to pursue master's or doctorates in foreign countries each year.
With technologies in various industries developing rapidly, CEPD officials said, the government must cooperate with local enterprises to train and keep the nation's reservoir of talented workers.
The scholarship program will require an estimated NT$250 million (US$7.35 million) the first year, NT$360 million the second year and further increase to an average of NT$440 million annually from the fourth year onward, the officials said.
A tropical depression in waters east of the Philippines could develop into a tropical storm as soon as today and bring rainfall as it approaches, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, while issuing heat warnings for 14 cities and counties. Weather model simulations show that there are still considerable differences in the path that the tropical depression is projected to take. It might pass through the Bashi Channel to the South China Sea or turn northeast and move toward the sea south of Japan, CWA forecaster Yeh Chih-chun (葉致均) said, adding that the uncertainty of its movement is still high,
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