The government’s policy of opening the country’s higher education system to Chinese students was welcomed by presidents of several top universities, who dwelled on the advantages more than the disadvantages at a forum on its potential impact in Taipei yesterday.
With a timetable to implement the policy for the autumn semester next year, public hearings on the subject are being held before the legislature possibly amends laws to enable the implementation of one of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) campaign pledges.
At the forum yesterday, Straits Exchange Foundation Secretary-General Kao Koong-lian (高孔廉) said there is still a lack of public consensus on allowing Chinese students to study in Taiwan, a move the government plans to implement along with a proposal to recognize educational qualifications issued in China.
“It’s not that the people who oppose the policy are not making sense in their arguments. It is just that [the policy] is good for the country in many ways,” said Kao, saying that it could ease enrollment shortages sparked by the dwindling birth rate, enhance mutual understanding between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and foster a positive impression of Taiwan.
Kao said that admitting Chinese students to Taiwan’s universities could spur Taiwanese students to study harder and help with academic research “as Chinese students work harder than Taiwanese,” adding that this was an “objective fact.”
National Taiwan University (NTU) president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔) agreed with Kao.
“Many people have the experience, as I did, when they were in China for conferences that they were awakened at 6:30am in the morning by Chinese students reading in English out loud. What many of our students would be doing then is staying up surfing the Internet until 6:30am,” Lee said.
National Taiwan Normal University president Guo Yih-shun (郭義雄), NTU vice president Bau Tzong-ho (包宗和), National Cheng Kung University president Michael Lai (賴明詔) and National Taipei University president Hou Chung-weun (侯崇文) all agreed that the policy would increase the competitive edge of local universities and students.
“The government is taking the right direction to open its doors to Chinese students, but there are some concerns that need to be addressed,” Hou said.
One of the concerns was that admitting Chinese students might dilute the scarce resources available for the country’s higher education system, he said.
Chinese students will be recruited outside of quotas reserved for local students, he said. “[This] will increase the burden on teachers and so might negatively influence education quality and the cost of managing a university,” he said.
Currently the government is mulling setting a quota of less than 2 percent of each school’s annual enrollment for Chinese students. Also, the students would not be eligible for scholarships from the schools and would be banned from working part-time during their stay in Taiwan. Furthermore, they would be required to return to China immediately after they finish school, among others.
A Chinese student who currently studies at National Cheng Chi University as an exchange student from China’s Nanjing University, said at the forum that the restrictions would make it difficult for Taiwan to attract excellent Chinese students because Hong Kong offered better conditions in terms of scholarships, residence rights after school and working opportunities.
On the scholarship issue, the leaders of the universities were of the opinion that having entrepreneurs — especially businesses with operations in China — provide scholarships to Chinese students could be a solution to the problem.
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