TAIWAN: Top students head for China

A group of top Taiwanese students will head for leading universities in China this September, even though a bill to recognise their China-accredited degrees when they return home is stalled in the Taiwanese parliament.

For the first time, China threw open its universities this year to Taiwanese students obtaining high scores in Taiwan's academic tests, rather than requiring them to sit China's own ferocious entrance examination, the gaokao.

Beijing announced in April that Taiwanese students scoring within the top 12% of the Taiwan exam would be eligible. Around a dozen Taiwanese students were admitted to China's most prestigious universities including Peking and Fudan, to start next month.

However, a bill that recognises degrees obtained in China by Taiwan nationals, and which would also allow mainland Chinese students to enrol in Taiwanese universities, has been held up in Taiwan's parliament, the legislative Yuan, making studying on the mainland a risky venture.

"From the students' perspective they are free to go, there are no problems with studying in mainland China and they are aware of the consequences and use of their degree," Ovid Tzeng, a former education minister in Taiwan and now Minister without Portfolio, told University World News.

"Students recognise that political infighting is only short term," he said, adding the issue had become "complicated by political manoeuvring".

Tzeng pointed out that many Taiwanese universities hired researchers of Chinese origin coming from US universities such as the University of Berkeley and Harvard, but who obtained their undergraduate degrees on the mainland before going to the US. So it made no sense not to recognise mainland Chinese qualifications. "We look at what they can do."

He did not believe there would be a problem allowing mainland students to register at Taiwanese universities, seeing it as a two-way exchange.

He believed that as soon as the ban on recognising degrees from China was lifted, a quota of up to 1,000 students would come. "People are lining up to come. We have very strong teaching in Taiwan."

The policy of free movement of students is part of the ruling nationalist Kuomintang party's rapprochement with China. But the party is also keen to attract students to the country's universities, which are beginning to have spare capacity because of a low birth rate in Taiwan.

But the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) fears an influx from the mainland could 'undermine' Taiwan's university system and push local graduates out of jobs, and on principle it opposes closer ties with China.

After heated brawling in the legislature, with MPs even resorting to fisticuffs, the DPP, which is in a minority in parliament, said in May it would no longer block legislation allowing mainland students to study in Taiwan.

In return it insisted on restrictions on the universities and locations where mainland students could study, as well as a strict quota on the overall numbers to around 1,000 per year. Mainland students would also be ineligible for scholarships, and should not be granted permission to stay in Taiwan on completion of their degrees.

Some 3,000 mainland students are already studying on non-degree or exchange programmes in Taiwan.

According to one study by the Chinese University of Hong Kong, released in May, as many as two million students from China could be interested in studying in Taiwan, in particular because tuition there would be much cheaper for them than studying in the US or Europe.

Other reasons, according to the poll conducted at universities in China, included good teaching and a similar language and cultural background.

The DPP has engaged in filibustering and other disruptive tactics since April to delay the bill, and boycotted consultations on the bill during the summer, hoping that if it was eventually passed it would be too late for mainland students to enrol in Taiwan at the beginning of the academic year in September.

The next possible hearing for the bill is a special session of the Yuan that starts in mid-August.

yojana.sharma@uw-news.com