New Southbound Policy Office Director James Huang (黃志芳) yesterday said that the cultivation of talent is the most important aspect in the policy aimed at expanding ties with ASEAN member states and India.
Speaking at a forum at the National Taipei University of Education, Huang underlined the role of the nation’s higher education institutes in pushing the policy.
The “new southbound policy” is a talent-based policy, he said, adding that only when the nation has the necessary talent will it be able to expand its business ties southbound.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The higher education sector has not yet reached its full capacity, as the nation’s low birth rate has thrown the student-teacher ratio off balance, Huang said, adding that one of the policies’ benefits is that it can help solve this issue by having tertiary institutes implement plans to recruit students and white-collar workers from Southeast Asia and India.
For example, the Indonesian government routinely allocates funding to finance officials attending classes offered by higher education institutes in Taiwan, he said.
The government has initiated talks with the Philippine government to collaborate on higher education, Huang said, adding that he learned from Representative to the Philippines Gary Lin (林松煥) that many Philippine college graduates have expressed an interest in earning an English-teaching diploma in Taiwan.
While the nation’s population is shrinking, populations are on the rise in Southeast Asia and India, with the population of ASEAN member states estimated to reach 790 million and that of India to reach 1.65 billion, surpassing China by 2050, he said.
Huang said that countries around the world have carried out business strategies in ASEAN such as helping its members build railways and bridges in exchange for business opportunities, but the fiercest competition among these countries is in leveraging their higher education capacity in ASEAN.
For instance, Japan has implemented a program to send tenured professors to Indonesia as visiting scholars for three years, after which the professors would recommend their best students in Indonesia to graduate institutes, with all tuition fees covered by the Japanese government, he said.
After these students receive their master’s degrees, they are immediately offered jobs at Japanese corporations to help them profit in Southeast Asia, he said, adding that this type of strategy is the essence of the policy.
Taiwan has an edge over Southeast Asia in terms of higher education, Huang said, adding that its climate, which is very similar to that of Southeast Asian countries, makes it an ideal destination for Southeast Asian students to pursue higher education.
Recruiting Southeast Asian students would help to cultivate “Taiwan-friendly” talent, Huang added.
“Taiwan, as the ‘pivot’ between Northeast and Southeast Asia, must not be absent from this competition,” he said, adding that the new southbound policy is different from past policy in that it is “human-centered,” rather than simply profit-driven.
Responding to audience members’ question about people having limited access to learning materials on Southeast Asian languages, Huang said that this problem can be resolved by asking Southeast Asian workers to bring publications from their hometowns to Taiwan when they return home for vacation.
He added that there is a bookstore opened by new residents in Taoyuan where people can buy language-learning materials on Southeast Asian languages.
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