CULTURAL DIVISION
Taipei Economic & Cultural Office in Houston
Facts on International Educational & Cultural Exchanges
(Excerpt from the Republic of China Yearbook, 1994)

In 1992, with the assistance of the ministry, 35 international cultural or education conferences were held in Taiwan and nearly 3,000 local representatives went overseas to attend some 1,400 international conferences.

To develop the relations with East European countries, the ROC government plans to send 35 teachers and students of the Russian Language to study in Russia over the next four years. People from the Chinese mainland with educational and cultural expertise are now allowed to come to Taiwan to perform or take part in activities that promote academic and cultural communication between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits. At the same time, presidents of all public colleges are now able to visit the Chinese mainland. Civil servants are no longer banned from attending cultural and academic activities held on the Chinese mainland as long as the activities are related to their work.

Chinese Students Abroad

Nearly 115,000 students from Taiwan have been granted permission to study in foreign countries since 1954. Engineering students account for more than 30,000. or 26 percent, of the total. Over 90 percent of these students went to the United States, while the rest went to more than 30 other countries.

Students who intend to study in foreign countries at their own expense no longer need permission from the Ministry of Education before going abroad since July 1989. As such, Chinese students studying abroad on a self-financed basis are excluded from the above statistics.

In 1992, the ROC government sponsored study by 111 students in eight countries. Of these, 36 pursued studies in the humanities; 27, in the social sciences; and 48, in science and technology.

Foreign Students in Taiwan

The number of foreign students pursuing higher education and Chinese language studies in the ROC fell more than 8 percent from the 1991-92 academic year. Nearly 5,500 foreign students from 70 countries enrolled in ROC schools during the 1992-93 school year. Of them, about 5,000 majored in the humanities, some 360 in the social sciences, and more than 87 in science and technology.