In today’s episode of Looking South, Eric Gau speaks with Meng-Jiy Wang, the Dean of the Office of International Affairs at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.

Transcription:

Eric Gau: Good morning everyone, I’m Eric Gau, and welcome to another edition of Looking South here on ICRT. Today, we’re talking about the importance of attracting more students from Southeast Asian countries to Taiwan. To tell us about that, we have Meng-Jiy Wang, the Dean of the Office of International Affairs at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Dean Wang, welcome to the show.

Meng-jiy Wang: Hi, hello everybody.

Eric: Ms. Wang, Taiwan already hosts many countries from around the world. How many students from New Southbound Policy target countries are already here? What attracted them to Taiwan? What kind of fields are they studying?

Meng-jiy: As of the last academic year, we have already attracted more than 11,000 students from southbound countries. But beside Asian countries, we have also tried to very aggressively attract students from South Asia, which are India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Australia, and New Zealand. That’s how we define New Southbound countires, compared with the Southbound countries.

Eric: So what attracted them to Taiwan, and what are they studying here?

Meng-jiy: That’s a very good question. Actually, we ask our international students nearly every day “why you would like to study in Taiwan”, especially since we just started the new semester recently. Usually, the answer is that Taiwan, especially Taipei, is so convenient, in terms of the mass transportation. They also like the very safe Taiwan cities. They say that usually, they can’t go out after 10PM or even 9PM, but in Taipei, there is no problem, they go YouBike, they walk, they go shopping, they enjoy life here in Taipei so much, not only for the convenience but also for the safety. More importantly, if we want to attract very good students, it’s the scholarships. Taiwan Tech tries to attract the best students from Southbound and New Southbound countries, so we provide scholarships not only for PHD but even for Masters students. More than 50% of masters students actually continue their PHD with us by receiving their scholarship in Taiwan. So I think the strongest point is our high-quality of education, and very friendly environment for New Southbound students.

Eric: You’ve already mentioned scholarships. What other kinds of benefits does the government offer to attract more foreign students, more new southbound policy students?

Meng-jiy: All the international students, as soon as they arrive, they can apply for an ARC for their residency in Taiwan. After they stay for more than 183 days, they are also eligible to apply for our medical insurance, which is world-class. All of the international students are well taken care of by our country, by Taiwan. I think that’s something they can’t get even in their own countries. Not only for the systems of education but also for the medical system, I think they appreciate very much what the government provides to them. Recently, our government also promised to provide them employment. In the past, whoever doesn’t hold a Taiwanese ID needs to go through some very complicated procedures in order to stay and work. Also, their salary had to be higher than local students’ for the same job in order to be hired. But recently, all these problems have been solved by the Ministry of Labor. That means that for all international students, after they graduate, if they want to stay in Taiwan and find a job, it has become much easier.

Eric: We’ve been talking about what benefits there are for foreign students here. But what are the benefits for Taiwan in having more Southeast Asian students getting their educations here.

Meng-ji: You mean for the country, or for the universities?

Eric: For the country…and for the universities too.

Meng-ji: From the university side, we receive state-of-the-art students, which means that they have to be very good students to receive the scholarships from Taiwan Tech. So we receive very good students so we have high quality of research. The good thing for Taiwanese students on campus is that because of the international students, they become more internationalized; they can speak different languages, not necessarily English, sometimes they learn also learn Indonesian or Vietnamese, which is very interesting. And after that, they broaden their minds. They start to realize that Taiwan is seriously very small, so they start to accept the culture from different countries. Secondly, because of those international students who come to Taiwan, they start to learn Mandarin. Most universities provide free Mandarin courses, including our university, so they can join different levels of Mandarin courses, every day we organize so many classes for them. After they learn Mandarin, they can communicate with local people, so ultimately they find the living conditions is so good and they want to stay so they find jobs in Taiwan. We get high-quality people who can work for Taiwanese companies and businesses. I think the benefits are quite significant.

Eric: For those students who don’t stay in Taiwan, who go back to their home countries, what kind of impact had these Taiwan-educated students made back at home. Do you know of any stories where they took what they learned here and applied it here?

Meng-ji: Because Taiwan Tech already started its international program for more than 12 years, we already have so many alumni who have already went back to their home countries. Currently, in Indonesia, we probably have more than 100, 150 alumni who already went back to work in their country. If the student, for example, learned civil engineering, when they went home, they started to build high speed rail, or joined a company that can do high speed rail or MRT or make different buildings. I think the impact is really there for different subjects. You asked what kind of subjects do students study in Taiwan. Actually, they study all the subjects. That’s why the scholarships are very very competitive, because students from different countries apply for different subjects in different universities. We can really say that whatever subject they study in Taiwan, when they bring it back home, they contribute to their own country, to improve their life or living situation there. I think that one third of our alumni go home to become professors, so we have a very strong alumni network in different countries, not only from our university, but from all universities in Taiwan it’s probably the same situation. I’m quite proud of them actually.

Eric: Looking forward, how is the government going to expand the Southeast Asian student body here in Taiwan? And in your opinion, what more could the government do to attract students and help them feel more welcome, more at home, here in Taiwan?

Meng-ji: That’s another important question. I think just increasing the number of students is not that practical, because we have to consider our own capacity. Does the campus have the accommodations, or the class sizes that are big enough to accommodate all the students? Actually, the government has really provided some incentives; for example, not just the Ministry of Education, but also the Ministry of Science and Technology and even the Taipei city government, very recently tried to provide scholarships to attract students from specific subjects to come to study. Not even to mention that there are so many different proposals that have been approved recently by the MOST and MOE. They provide scholarships for establishing research centers in New Southbound countries. They also encourage us to have commercial or business or exchange students or practical training in those new southbound countries. Also, they provide for lecturers who don’t yet hold a PHD degree to come study with a particular scholarship only for those lecturers. So many different types of incentives have already been announced.

Eric: We’ve been chatting with Dean Meng-jih Wang of Taiwan Tech. Miss Wang, thank you again for taking the time out of your schedule to speak with us.

Meng-jih: Thank you very much.

Eric: And that’s this week’s installment of Looking South here on ICRT. For past episodes of this series, head over to the ICRT Website’s Podcasts section. I’m Eric Gau, and thank you all for tuning in.