This month, Hung-Duen Yang will leave his role as president of Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-Sen University to take up his post as Minister of Science and Technology in the newly-appointed cabinet. He reflects on his tenure as president, Taiwan’s internationalisation goals and the challenges faced by the country’s higher education institutions.
The PIE: You’ve just been appointed the new Minister of Science and Technology – tell me about your current role you’re leaving behind.
HDY: National Sun Yat-Sen University was established in 1980, which means that we are now only 36 years old. It’s named after Dr Sun Yat-Sen, the founding father of China. So far we have around 500 full-time faculty and around 9,000 students. However, we have more postgrad students than undergrad students so we are a more research intensive university.
“We are faced with a very severe challenge for higher education, that we have too many universities – 150 or something for 23 million people”
Everybody knows that in Taiwan and other universities in the Asia Pacific, or even others in Europe or America, we all face really severe challenges to higher education – financial problems, enrolment of students, tuition fee problems – but our university is young and energetic in the very dynamic city of Kaohsiung.
The PIE: What are the other challenges facing higher education in Taiwan at the moment?
HDY: In Taiwan we are faced with a very severe challenge for higher education, that we have too many universities – 150 or something for 23 million people – too many. And the birth rate is dropping, so higher education students are decreasing. Because of that, we’re trying to promote the quality of students to have an international appeal – to attract more and then to push more out.
The PIE: Does that mean there’s a concerted effort to bring in more international students to fill that gap?
HDY: Sometimes I don’t feel like the gap is that important. But we have to promote our quality of students to have international mobility. So for the incoming students, we form some kind of a system so that even our students not going out have an opportunity to talk to our international students. Even though you don’t go out, we try to create an international campus, so it looks like you are living on an international campus either way.
The PIE: Would you like to see more Taiwanese students studying abroad?
HDY: Yes. Because our birth rate is very low, so young people get less and less, that makes it easier to get a job in Taiwan so they don’t have the kind of pressure or motivation to go abroad. That’s our challenge. We try to make more encouraging programmes, try to encourage them to go abroad. And then sometimes they come back with more multicultural training and make more innovative ideas.
The PIE: What motivates them to study abroad?
“Taiwan is an island, so no matter what kind of industry or innovation, it always leads to international trading”
HDY: Taiwan is an island, so no matter what kind of industry or innovation, it always leads to international trading. So companies always have interaction with global companies. That’s why I encourage all the students to go to an Asia Pacific region first, especially now it is easier for students to go to mainland China. Now we try to get more non-Chinese speaking areas especially for China, Hong Kong, Singapore, that they can go to other language speaking countries.
The PIE: So there’s a big focus on employability?
HDY: Yes.
The PIE: Is there funding for students to go abroad?
HDY: Yes. The government has a central funding system and universities match that, so they often get half from the government programme and half from the university programme and even some funding from NGOs or donations sometimes. So most students can get almost half or three-quarters of the funding to study abroad.
The PIE: What other government support is there in helping to promote universities internationally?
HDY: Any kind of conference or platform, a central department like the Department of Education will try to do something. We had 26 universities at the APAIE conference in Melbourne this year and we were happy to have the chance to be there with our partner universities to share their experience, and to look for their collaboration with other universities.
The Taiwanese delegation will host the conference next year [supported by the government] – Kaohsiung is a really dynamic city so we really encourage everyone to come in 2017.
The PIE: What does the change in government mean for international education?
HDY: Years ago, I was working as the Deputy Minister of Education with another party, so I feel strongly that in the past the KMT, the current ruling party, they might have a good policy with mainland China. However, the incoming party, the DPP, they might split resources and effort to go to eastern and south Asia, New Zealand and Australia. I visited New Zealand earlier this year, in five days I went to eight New Zealand universities. And I think the incoming government will make a bit more effort to go to Asia, New Zealand and Australia.
The PIE: Is that a positive development?
“We’ve had students from Iran, from Pakistan, from Turkey, so we also have a prayer room for people from Islamic countries”
HDY: I think so. We had our first FTA signed with New Zealand [in 2013], and I think it will help not only for academia but also for industry and trading.
The PIE: How many of National Sun Yat-Sen University’s students study abroad?
HDY: About 400-500 students every year go abroad for an exchange programme.
The PIE: When students study abroad, where do they go?
HDY: Europe mostly, especially France, Germany, the UK, Finland, Sweden. They like a more European atmosphere but now we’re trying to encourage more to go to Russia, to try to get a different cultural experience.
The PIE: Why are you targeting Russia particularly as a study destination?
HDY: Because in the past, Taiwan followed the US too closely, like 80% of our PhD students come back from the US, so now we’re trying to encourage more diverse cultural training and atmosphere, in Russia, in Europe, and even now in New Zealand and Australia.
The PIE: How else has the university become more internationalised under your leadership?
HDY: Even though we are young and kind of small scale, in recent years we have initiated a lot of programmes to attract students from Europe, especially from France. We have strong, very friendly programmes to attract students from Europe, North America and southeast Asia.
In the last few years we’ve had students from Iran, from Pakistan, from Turkey, so we also have a prayer room that’s very friendly for people from Islamic countries.
The PIE: How many international students do you have at the university?
HDY: About 10%, around 1,000 of our 10,000 students. So on our campus you will see many, many different students from all over the world, even from Central and South America.
“In the past, Taiwan followed the US too closely, so now we’re trying to encourage more diverse cultural training”
The PIE: Do you find language is a barrier for students coming to study?
HDY: Yes. We have five or six taught fully English taught courses in postgraduate programmes. To address the language problem on Wednesday afternoons we have a so-called International Corner, where everybody is speaking in Chinese, Mandarin, and on Friday afternoons, everybody is speaking in English, no matter what country you come from, so we try to do that. Other than that we have a Chinese Learning Centre so we have free courses for them to learn Chinese more quickly.
The PIE: What else attacts international students to National Sun Yat-Sen University?
HDY: We have a very beautiful campus, we have a very beautiful beach on our campus and beautiful mountains, which is an attractive point for students. And National Sun Yat-Sen University is the leading university in Kaohsiung City – it is the second largest city in Taiwan, we have a harbor, an international airport and a beautiful, energetic, dynamic city.
We also have many alumni right now in Kaohsiung City. If we go to industry, we have more than 80 CEO graduates from our university, and then Congress, Mayor, City Hall, sportsmen are all our alumni, so we play a very important role to develop this new, dynamic city. That’s why we are aggressively encouraging all our faculty and students to go abroad and show our strengths and then try to attract more international students, colleagues and professors to stay to our university.
