Starting this year, foreign students applying for scholarships from the government will be tested on their Mandarin proficiency, in an exam similar to the TOEFL taken by Taiwanese students wishing to study in an English-speaking country.
The Ministry of Education hopes to begin test runs of the examination no later than June and officially start the program next year. Details will be made available today.
Currently, local language training centers have their own language proficiency tests to gauge their students' level of learning. The Ministry of Education hopes to establish a standardized criteria with the exam.
Chang Chin-sheng (張欽盛), director of the Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations under the Ministry of Education, told the Taipei Times yesterday that at first only potential applicants for the Taiwan Scholarship in certain countries will be asked to take the test, including those in the US, Russia, India, Japan and Vietnam.
The education ministry is expecting 510 recipients from 86 countries to begin courses in the fall semester, including 41 from the US, 29 from Russia, 25 from India, 24 from Japan and 20 from Vietnam. A total of 668 Taiwan Scholarship students from 86 countries are studying in Taiwan.
Since the finalists for the scholarships will be decided in June, Chang said that potential candidates will have to take the test before then.
So far, only Thailand specifies the test in its application bulletin, Chang said.
The Taiwan Scholarship program is designed to attract foreign students to study Taiwan's culture, language and customs, and to increase their understanding of the nation's development.
The government hopes to see the number of foreign students pursuing graduate or undergraduate degrees here rise to 5,000 by 2014.
The scholarships are being funded by the Ministry of Education (NT$150 million), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (NT$50 million), the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association (NT$50 million), the National Science Council as well as the Ministry of Economic Affairs (NT$15 million).
The scholarships are available in six categories, including for Chinese, undergraduate and the graduate studies.
The annual quota for the three scholarships is 300.
Diplomatic scholarships will be granted to students who are residents of the nation's diplomatic allies or of developing countries. The annual quota for this category is about 200.
The ministry's Mandarin promotion task force, which is collaborating with Taiwan Normal University in the design of the test, said that the examination would be divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced.
The first two categories have two sub-levels, while the advanced level has three.
Foreign students who wish to major in Chinese or related language programs must possess a language level of six, while those wanting to undertake undergraduate or graduate studies must pass at least the beginning level of the test.
The examination, which contains 120 multiple choice questions and lasts 120 minutes, consists of listening comprehension, vocabulary and grammar as well as reading comprehension.
CLASH OF WORDS: While China’s foreign minister insisted the US play a constructive role with China, Rubio stressed Washington’s commitment to its allies in the region The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday affirmed and welcomed US Secretary of State Marco Rubio statements expressing the US’ “serious concern over China’s coercive actions against Taiwan” and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea, in a telephone call with his Chinese counterpart. The ministry in a news release yesterday also said that the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs had stated many fallacies about Taiwan in the call. “We solemnly emphasize again that our country and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other, and it has been an objective fact for a long time, as well as
‘CHARM OFFENSIVE’: Beijing has been sending senior Chinese officials to Okinawa as part of efforts to influence public opinion against the US, the ‘Telegraph’ reported Beijing is believed to be sowing divisions in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture to better facilitate an invasion of Taiwan, British newspaper the Telegraph reported on Saturday. Less than 750km from Taiwan, Okinawa hosts nearly 30,000 US troops who would likely “play a pivotal role should Beijing order the invasion of Taiwan,” it wrote. To prevent US intervention in an invasion, China is carrying out a “silent invasion” of Okinawa by stoking the flames of discontent among locals toward the US presence in the prefecture, it said. Beijing is also allegedly funding separatists in the region, including Chosuke Yara, the head of the Ryukyu Independence
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
RSS