Taiwan Today

Peking University President Zhou Qifeng visited National Taiwan University July 14 and said he hoped both institutions could one day offer joint postgraduate degree programs. Zhou said NTU and Peking University could establish a similar arrangement to the one his institution’s School of Industrial Technology has with U.S.-based Georgia Institute of Technology. He said graduate students would be supervised by professors from both institutions and be awarded jointly issued Master’s or doctoral diplomas upon completion of their studies. NTU Vice President Chen Tai-ran said he was interested in the arrangement, but noted it would have to be in concert with Ministry of Education policy. Chen, who stood in at the meeting with Zhou for stroke-affected NTU President Lee Si-chen, said NTU and Peking University will increase reciprocal guest professor and student exchanges in the future. NTU and Peking University are pursuing joint academic opportunities in the fields of cancer research, electronics and telecommunications, environmental issues, global climate change and pharmaceuticals. Zhou, who is leading a delegation of mainland university deans to Taiwan, visited NTU before when he was president of Jilin University. He said most of Peking University’s former presidents had toured the island or NTU. The Peking University delegation included deans from its Department of Medicine, Institute of Computer Science & Technology, and schools of economics, industrial technology, and mathematical sciences. A dozen or so staff members connected with its Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan office also participated. Zhou said given the level of cooperation between the universities, each of their respective schools could expect to directly discuss areas of mutual interest in the future. Separately, Zhou welcomed the Chinese mainland’s Ministry of Education decision that Taiwan’s high school students could apply to mainland universities using their academic transcripts and test scores and did not need to be retested. Zhou said mainland universities have great respect for the standards and results of Taiwan’s academic tests. (FS-JSM)