Extracurricular activities play an
increasingly important role in Taiwan’s
education system.(Pang Chia-shan)
FACT FOCUS
- Taiwan has implemented a 12-year
basic education system since the 2014
school year.
- There are 148 universities, colleges
and junior colleges in Taiwan.
Education is an important component of government
policymaking and accounts for a large portion of the
budget. With an increasing emphasis on attaining
tertiary education, those with a technical college or
university degree account for 48.8 percent of Taiwan’s
population aged 15 and above, an 8.1 percentage point
increase over the past decade.
To offer students more opportunities, the Ministry of
Education introduced the 12-year basic education
to build on the nine-year compulsory education
beginning in 2014. Every year in competitions such as
the International Science Olympiad, young students
from Taiwan win distinctions in biology, chemistry, earth
sciences, mathematics, informatics and physics. The talent
in Taiwan’s workforce has contributed tremendously to
enhancing economic prosperity and quality of life.
Recognizing the multicultural nature of the nation,
the government has included in its 12-year basic
education system mandatory courses on Hakka, Holo,
languages of Taiwan’s 16 Indigenous tribes and those
of the new immigrants to spur the transmission, revival
and development of such languages. Furthermore, to
enhance the global competitiveness of Taiwan’s talent
and industry, the government adopted the Bilingual
2030 policy in 2021.
Scholarship Programs
Both government and university scholarships are
available for international students. The Taiwan
Scholarship program, for instance, offers grants
to students who wish to pursue undergraduate
or graduate degrees in diverse fields. Interested
applicants can contact the country’s embassies and
representative offices or visit the MOE’s website
https://english.moe.gov.tw/lp-24-1.htmlTo encourage international students to learn Mandarin
in Taiwan, the MOE established the Huayu Enrichment Scholarship. This program enables foreign students to
undertake Mandarin courses at 64 university-affiliated
Mandarin learning centers around the nation, while also
boosting international awareness and understanding of
Taiwan culture and society.
A list of Mandarin training centers and information
on learning the language in Taiwan can be found
on the websites of the MOE, Study in Taiwan(
www.studyintaiwan.org) and the Taiwan Mandarin Education Resources Center (
https://lmit.edu.tw/lc/school_list/).
