Education | Foreign university students in Taiwan reach 110,000

There were over 110,000 overseas students enrolled at Taiwanese universities in 2015. According to Taiwan’s Ministry of Education, those students represent 8.27 percent of its tertiary student population.
Foreign students come mainly from Malaysia, then China, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam, in that order.
The ministry revealed that the number of non-
local students rose by 16,537 last year to 110,182. Statistics also showed that the number of foreign students taking up advanced degrees increased by 6,000 last year.
Department of International and Cross-strait Education section head, Liu Su-miao said that the increase was mainly attributed to an additional 7,000 Chinese students. Liu added that the recruiting efforts of overseas students by local universities has been aggressive; there has been a decline in enrollment of Taiwanese students because of the low birth rate over the past two decades.
Statistics show that the ministry’s target to increase the number of foreign students from 30,000 in 2008 to more than 100,000 this year has been achieved. Taiwan’s government is aiming to turn the nation into an advanced learning powerhouse in the Asia-Pacific region, according to Liu.
Liu noted that there was also a significant rise in the number of students from India, Indonesia and Myanmar.
The ministry said the focus now would be to encourage foreign students to work in Taiwan and to give the country’s private sector more access to overseas graduates.