Taiwan Today

English-taught university programs are attracting students from Taiwan and abroad.

Students in the undergraduate journalism program at the International College watch their lecturer close his book. Class is finished for the day, and all of it has been taught in English. This is not the United Kingdom, United States or Australia, however, but a classroom in a college of Taipei’s Ming Chuan University, which offers eight undergraduate programs taught solely in English.

Instead of English-taught programs, the first thing most people associate with international higher education in Taiwan is learning Mandarin. But the reality is somewhat different, as there are also many students enrolled in English-taught university degree programs. The exact number of such students is difficult to ascertain, as the Ministry of Education (MOE) does not track the statistic. What can be said is that many local students work toward degrees in full-time undergraduate and graduate English-taught programs, as well as thousands of foreign students. In the latter group, MOE statistics indicate there were 36,863 foreign students enrolled in Taiwan in 2010. Of that number, 12,555 studied in full-time Mandarin-learning programs and 2,069 were exchange students. It is likely that most of the remaining 22,239 were enrolled in English-taught degree programs.

Many foreign students, English-speaking and otherwise, choose to study in Taiwan because of the extensive financial assistance available here. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the MOE and the National Science Council offer scholarships under the Taiwan Scholarship program to students from the Republic of China’s (ROC) diplomatic allies as well as non-allied nations, while the International Cooperation and Development Fund (ICDF) offers scholarships for students from developing nations. Southeast Asian students can also apply for Southern Sunshine Scholarships offered by the government-supported Elite Study in Taiwan (EST) Program Office.

Meanwhile, to attract more overseas students and facilitate ties with international universities and educational groups, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET), a non-governmental organization (NGO), was formed in 2005 through the integration of three previously existing university associations. The NGO receives substantial funding from the MOE and currently represents 118 universities in Taiwan.

According to Lily Chen, FICHET’s CEO, the NGO focuses on English “not necessarily because it’s the world language, but because we’re trying to focus on students who do not speak Mandarin at all. Our international programs are divided into four categories. In the A Category, more than 90 percent of the courses are taught in English. Those are for non-Mandarin speakers.”

Among its tasks, FICHET is charged with promoting Taiwan’s higher education offerings overseas and with recruiting international students, many of whom speak English. To accomplish those goals, FICHET sets up Taiwan education fairs, attends international education conferences and cooperates with foreign education bodies. One example of such cooperation is the agreement FICHET signed with the Association of Indian Universities in March 2010 to allow degrees and credits earned by Indian students in Taiwan to be recognized by universities in India.

In Taiwan, local and foreign students can enroll in English-only programs ranging from master’s in business administration (MBA) degrees to engineering and social sciences graduate degrees. The island’s offerings even extend as far as undergraduate and graduate degree programs in tropical agriculture offered at National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) in Neipu Township, Pingtung County at the island’s southern tip.

The NPUST program was one of the first university-level English-taught programs in Taiwan, says Lee Pai-po, deputy secretary-general of the ICDF. NPUST’s Institute of Tropical Agriculture was set up in 1996 and began recruiting foreign graduate students in 1998.

The NPUST tropical agriculture program was also the first of the current total of 24 undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. programs offered under the ICDF’s Higher Education Scholarship Program.

The foundation’s scholarship program was started to provide a conduit through which Taiwan could share its technical expertise with other countries. “When foreign dignitaries visited us, they often asked if they could send their best young people to Taiwan to study in degree programs, including Ph.D. and master’s,” says Lee, who came up with the concept of offering the degree programs in English.

National Chengchi University (NCCU), which is located in Taipei City and is one of Taiwan’s top schools in the fields of business and the humanities, was the first to offer an MBA degree, as well as graduate-level studies of Taiwan and mainland China (now known as Asia-Pacific Studies at NCCU) and international communications programs, all of which are taught solely in English.

For the fall semester of 2010, NCCU enrolled 508 international degree-seeking students, including 169 from the Americas and 66 from Europe. NCCU’s International MBA program, or IMBA, was launched in 2001.

IMBA students benefit from visiting foreign professors who teach short courses, as well as international exchange opportunities with more than 80 foreign schools, including top universities in Europe and the United States.

NCCU’s IMBA is also the only MBA program in Taiwan, and just one of 18 in Asia, to be accredited by both the US-based Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and the Europe-based European Quality Improvement System, also known as EQUIS.

Learning Together

Besides attracting international students, roughly 50 percent of students in the IMBA program are Taiwanese. “Globalization is a major trend, but not only did we want business education to offer a global program, we wanted to set up a platform so foreign and local students could enjoy learning together,” says Chester Ho, managing director of NCCU’s IMBA program.

IMBA students are taught using the well-known Harvard Business School case method, under which they tackle practical business problems based on real-world examples. Mainland China is a major focus of IMBA coursework due to its proximity and the growing economic ties between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Several years of full-time work experience is an admission prerequisite for students in the IMBA program. “I like that people with real work experience enroll in the program,” says David Joughin, an IMBA student from the United States. “I learned a lot about how Taiwanese companies operate from working with my classmates.”

NCCU’s Asia-Pacific Studies master’s program, meanwhile, takes an interdisciplinary approach that covers politics, economics and international relations. The program was formed in 2009 via the merger of the school’s former China Studies and Taiwan Studies programs. The Asia-Pacific Studies program capitalizes on Taiwan’s relationship with mainland China, says Kuan Ping-yin, the program’s director. “We have a sort of advantage in being a close neighbor, but [we’re] able to have a more objective view of China, so people can be critical.”

While there is a strong focus on China, the program is also renowned for its emphasis on Taiwan. Landry Vedrenne, a reverend from France who is based in Taipei, enrolled to further his knowledge of Taiwan. “I wanted to study international relations and understand more about Taiwan,” he says. “The teaching is very good; it’s very challenging but it helps you to improve a lot.”

Going Global

National Taiwan University (NTU), another of Taiwan’s top universities, offers English-medium graduate programs in geosciences, biomedical engineering, biotechnology, immunology and occupational medicine. The school’s Global MBA (GMBA) program, which started in 2006, however, is likely its best-known English degree program. 

Although the GMBA program enrolled foreign students from 40 countries in the fall semester of 2010, it strives to maintain a 1:1 ratio of local to foreign students. In fact, local demand was one of the key factors behind the launch of the GMBA program. “Many Chinese and Taiwanese firms came to campus, telling us they needed students who are bilingual,” says Lin Hsiou-wei, director of the GMBA program.

As with NCCU’s IMBA program, visiting foreign professors teach short courses at NTU and dozens of exchange programs are available at foreign schools. The GMBA program, which is AACSB-certified, also uses the Harvard Business School case method. A key aspect of the program is the Global Consulting Practicum, which allows NTU students to collaborate, in English, with counterparts from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School to help real companies do business in the United States.

Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s premier research institute, established its Taiwan International Graduate Program (TIGP) in 2002. TIGP offers nine specialized English-taught Ph.D. degrees, mostly in the natural sciences such as molecular biology, bioinformatics and chemical biology. TIGP was set up to attract international students as well as provide local students with a research environment similar to that of a Western university. “These local students don’t need to go overseas and can experience an international environment here,” says Han Chau-chung, TIGP student affairs adviser and faculty member. TIGP had enrolled 293 students from 29 countries as of January 2010, but more than half of the students in the program are local.

TIGP courses are taught in partnership with universities like NTU, National Tsing Hua University in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, and National Chiao Tung University, which is also located in Hsinchu. As a result, TIGP students study at both Academia Sinica and partner schools, depending on their program and specialty. While most classes are taught at Academia Sinica, the degrees are conferred by the partner universities.

Internationalization is a key part of the curriculum at Ming Chuan University, as seen at the International College (IC), which currently offers eight undergraduate English-taught programs and one master’s program. The undergraduate programs include business, finance, computer science, journalism and tourism.

When Ming Chuan started its first all-English undergraduate program in 2000, it was the only school to have done so in Taiwan. The program’s existence was a bit tenuous that first year, however, as Ming Chuan was not authorized by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to confer degrees, chiefly because the ministry did not have an established procedure for assessing programs taught solely in English. After one year, the ministry changed its position and the university launched a degree program, followed by the birth of the IC.

The idea for starting the English programs came from university president Lee Chuan in the late 1990s, says Max K.W. Liu, dean of the IC. “[Lee] decided internationalization would be a characteristic of Ming Chuan,” Liu says. “When he promoted international education in 1999, he was the first university president to do this.”

In the fall semester of 2010, Ming Chuan’s IC program had 449 foreign students and 595 from Taiwan. Local students must pass an English-proficiency test as part of the IC’s admission criteria. “We insist on quality; there’s no easy ride,” Liu says. “We’ve even kicked students out.”

Nevertheless, the IC’s all-English courses are a big attraction for local students. “I love English, so I wanted to have a 100 percent English-taught environment to study in,” says Ally Liu, a local second-year IC journalism student. Another factor that attracts local students is the IC’s international atmosphere. “I can meet people from almost 77 countries here in the International College,” Liu says.

Clear Demand

While there is a clear demand for university programs taught in English from both Taiwanese and foreign students, local schools still face a number of serious challenges, one of which stems from the low university tuition fees that attract many foreign students to Taiwan in the first place. “NCCU’s IMBA program is one of the best in Taiwan and the cost is only a fraction of that of an MBA program in the States, so I definitely wanted to get my MBA degree here before I go home,” IMBA student David Joughin says.

While cheap tuition is great for students, it is another matter for the schools, as the MOE sets tuition fees and universities are not permitted to raise them of their own volition. The low fees are especially problematic for English-taught programs seeking to attract foreign faculty members, as funding constraints mean that local salaries remain comparatively low.

To illustrate the vast gulf in tuition fees between Taiwan and neighboring countries, NCCU’s IMBA program costs international students a total of just NT$369,600 (US$12,320), while Hong Kong University’s MBA program costs HK$381,000 (US$48,900), nearly four times as much. The MOE is expected to allow tuition fees to rise this year, but tuition at Taiwan’s universities will still be much cheaper than institutions in other countries.

With such funding restrictions, the faculty of most English-taught programs in Taiwan is heavily local, with few foreign professors. Many of the local professors have received advanced degrees from schools in the United States, including each of the program directors interviewed for this article. It is still a challenge for some professors to teach in English, however, a factor program directors are mindful of. “The pressure of teaching courses in English is quite demanding as you need extra time and energy to teach,” NCCU’s Kuan says.

“The salaries and incentives [we can offer] are not as competitive as HK and Singapore, even South Korea,” says NCCU Asia-Pacific Studies program director Kuan Ping-yin. Conversely, local schools can lose local professors to other countries. “In Hong Kong, faculty salaries may be three times higher than here,” Kuan says.

Local schools also face a great deal of regional competition in their efforts to attract English-speaking foreign students, despite the low fees. Universities in Singapore and Hong Kong teach virtually all their programs in English, while schools in Japan and South Korea also offer English-taught programs.

Another challenge Taiwan’s English-taught universities face is that government policy prevents scholarship recipients from staying and working in Taiwan after they graduate. While this is done to protect local jobs, it has the effect of deterring some prospective foreign students from enrolling in local programs. It also means that the funds spent on scholarships have limited benefits for Taiwan. “Other countries like Singapore allow foreign students to stay. I think that’s a good idea. We’re willing to give scholarships to foreign students, then we ask them to leave [when they have completed their studies]. Why expend such resources then? We should require them to stay!” NCCU’s Kuan says with a laugh, although he raises a valid point. Singapore, for example, has a special program in which foreign students pay reduced tuition and then work in the country after graduation for at least three years.

Despite the challenges they face, local English-taught university program directors remain undaunted, pointing to other factors that attract students to Taiwan such as the island’s close ties with mainland China and its dynamic high-tech industry, which is a popular draw for students interested in business. “We have [few] natural resources, but we’ve become an IT [information technology] powerhouse,” NCCU’s Chester Ho says. “That’s something we need to be proud of and let people know. Lots of foreign students, we took them to firms like Asus and Delta Electronics. After one visit, their eyes brightened up, and they then understand there’s a lot to learn here.”

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Hilton Yip is a freelance writer based in Taipei.

Copyright © 2011 by Hilton Yip

Correction
In “Pursuing Higher Education—in English” in the May 2011 print edition of Taiwan Review, the wrong characters were used for the Chinese name of Professor Chester Ho, managing director of National Chengchi University’s IMBA program. The correct characters for his name are 何小台. Taiwan Review regrets the error.