Source: Secretariat

In view of the labor shortage in the industries in Taiwan, the "Program to Promote International Students to Come to and Stay in Taiwan" of the Ministry of Education will expand the enrollment and retention of overseas Chinese students, Hong Kong and Macao students, foreign students and other international students. It is expected that overseas bases will be set up in Europe, the United States, and the countries covered by the New Southward Policy to provide students with courses of learning Mandarin and help recruit students in new special classes. Among them, the first overseas base that has been attached great importance to by all walks of life in Taiwan and Indonesia has been launched in Indonesia, with Cheng Shiu University as the general enrollment school.

In the "Program to Promote International Students to Come to and Stay in Taiwan" of the Ministry of Education, it is expected to set up 10 overseas bases in Europe, the United States and the countries covered by the New Southward Policy, and Taiwan's colleges and universities will join hands with enterprises to promote the recruitment of foreign students in a new type of special classes. All the tuition and fees of the students in the special classes of this program will be provided by the National Development Fund, and each student will receive a monthly subsidy of NTD 10,000 from corporate scholarships. But, the students will have to stay in Taiwan for two years after graduation, or they will have to return the subsidy if they do not stay in Taiwan.

Three bases in Indonesia have been set up for the Indonesia Overseas Base, where Cheng Shiu University, Chaoyang University of Technology and Hsing Wu University are respectively responsible for consulting for staying in Taiwan and Chinese language teaching activities. Cheng Shiu University currently serves as the general enrollment school of the “Indonesian Overseas Base” and the deputy general enrollment school in the “Philippine Overseas Base” in the “International Alliance for Industry-Academia Education Cooperation”.

The unveiling ceremony of the Indonesian Overseas Base was completed on December 13, 2023 and the memorandum of cooperation (MOU) with the representatives of 31 universities of technology in Indonesia was signed to promote the new special class. In addition, in view of the potential huge market for higher education students in the Philippines, Cheng Shiu University also sent staff to the Cebu University of the Philippines in early December 2023 to talk about the details for setting up an office, which is expected to start operation after the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) in January 2024.

According to the statistics of the representative office in Indonesia, about 17,000 Indonesian students are studying in Taiwan, making Indonesia the second largest source country for foreign students in Taiwan. Jui-Chang Kung, President of Cheng Shiu University, believes that the new special class provides various industry-government-academia scholarships and a high-quality education environment, which should be a great incentive for Indonesian students as the local university enrollment rate is quite low.

In an interview with the “Higher Education Innovation E-News” a few days ago, President Kung mentioned that the overseas base project is a large-scale integration program that is across countries, departments and school. It is hoped to achieve the functions of enrollment promotion, Chinese language advance study, academic exchanges, international cooperation, career consultation, talent recruitment and so on. Cheng Shiu University expects to launch a new special class program in March to recruit outstanding Indonesian students to study and work in Taiwan.

President Kung stressed that overseas bases shoulder the important mission of international cooperation and enrollment, and both the government and enterprises place high hopes on promoting more outstanding Indonesian students to study and work in Taiwan in the future, so as to achieve the goal of jointly cultivating talents under the New Southward Policy. Details will be published in Ministry of Education's “Higher Education Innovation (March) E-News”.

https://www.news.high.edu.tw/feature_story/index.php