The number of foreign students attending Taiwanese universities last year dropped 9.46 percent from 2019, mainly due to a marked decline in the number of Chinese students, the National Audit Office said in a report.
Last year, there were 116,038 foreign students — 67,299 degree students and 48,739 non-degree students — a decrease of 12,119, or 9.46 percent, from 128,157 in 2019, the report said.
China in 2020 stopped allowing Chinese students to study in Taiwan, saying that COVID-19 pandemic controls and “the cross-strait situation” were the reasons for the change. Chinese who had already come to Taiwan were allowed finish their studies.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Regarding the number of Chinese studying in Taiwan, there were 16,696 visiting students and 8,353 degree students in 2019, four visiting students and 6,032 degree students in 2020, zero visiting students and 4,293 degree students in 2021, 22 visiting students and 3,121 degree students in 2022, and 2,523 visiting students and 2,128 degree students last year, the report said, citing data from the Mainland Affairs Council.
From January to June this year, there were 953 visiting Chinese students, and the number of degree students from China is projected to decrease to zero by the end of this month, it said.
To address Taiwan’s low birthrate and key industries’ demand for talent, the Ministry of Education in 2022 launched a program to increase the number of Chinese students (including from Hong Kong and Macau) and other foreign students in line with the National Development Council’s immigration policy, the report said.
The goal of the program is to increase the number of foreigners studying at departments and institutes related to Taiwan’s key industries and retain talent, it said.
However, 79 percent of foreign students, or 91,673, came from 10 nations or regions last year — India, Indonesia, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, South Korea, the US and Vietnam — and no mechanism has yet been created to track the employment of foreign students after graduation, it said.
The office has asked the ministry to establish an employment tracking mechanism to better evaluate the program’s outcomes, and it is urging subsidized schools to improve their employment counseling services to help top foreign students join Taiwan’s workforce after graduation, the report said.
The ministry should find ways to attract students from other countries and regions, particularly because the number of foreign students has been decreasing for about five academic years, it said.
Overall, the outcomes of the program needs to improve, as enrollment is limited and many foreign students have left school because they failed the Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language, the report said.
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