International students in Taiwan and NCKU : Considerations, attitudes and impressions

A few months ago I participated in a study performed by first year undergraduates students in NCKU as part of a university program to encourage Taiwanese undergraduates to tackle English academic level research during their first year with the university. A worthy goal indeed.

This study was especially interesting for me since it was dealing with research issues I’m very interested in. The study was titled “The Obstacle of Foreign Students at NCKU” although I believe the title “International student in Taiwan and NCKU : Considerations, attitudes and impressions” might be a bit more fitting.

The sweet students have been kind to share their paper with me, and although the level of research and English needs some work there are some interesting statements in there that I would like to quote and share with you :

Impression to NCKU before coming

At this part, about 52.63% of the students have not heard of NCKU before they enter the university. Among the rest, 51.85% of the students knew that NCKU is famous for some aspects, 33.33% of the students only knew the name of this university, and 14.81% knew the other information about NCKU (Chart 1.2). Besides, most of the students who have heard about NCKU before their coming got the information from NCKU website (40.00%). The second high is from their acquaintances (25.00%), professors’ recommendation is the next (11.25%). The rest 27.5% learned from the brochure of NCKU (5.00%), Taipei Representative Office (5.00%), from magazine (3.75%), international seminar (2.50%), International exhibition of universities (1.25%), and 10.00% the others.(Chart 1.2)

Read this carefully. Most people knew nothing about the university before arriving. 40% got the info about the university from the official webpage and 27.5% got their information from brochures. This comes as a surprise because the English websites and brochures for Taiwanese universities, especially NCKU’s, have huge problems when it comes to information and self-promotion. Imagine what the impact would be if the universities would actually invest in a decent university portal.

Why did the international students at NCKU choose NCKU?

Reason for choosing NCKU

This question is also divided into four parts, Environment, Education, Living, and Internationalization. As the same process of the question above,we ask them about the priority, choose education as most attractive reason stand for 65.38%, second high is environment, and both the living and internationalization parts stand for 9.62%.

Environment

In environment part, cultural heritage is so enchanting that the factor has something to do with the foreign students’ decision. Cultural heritage in Tainan is a unique feature from other areas in Taiwan. Maybe it is one of the thinking that foreign students have at heart.

Education

Education is the most important element for alluring foreign student. In education part, the ranking of NCKU in the world, the sufficient academic resources and NCKU facilities are the overemphasized part that are always taken into consideration by foreign students. Thus, from the result we can unearth that promoting the ranking of NCKU in the world and add the related facilities is a better way to commercialize NCKU.

Living

The inexpensive cost in daily life is a main character for foreign students to come to Tainan. According to the result of our survey, the statistic show that the factor of the inexpensive cost accounts for 50 percent. Therefore, the low price in Tainan also is a distinctive feature from other zones in Taiwan that may attract the attentions of foreign students.

Internationalization

In internationalization field, there are about 36 percent of foreign students assume that NCKU is still have rooms for improvement. Second, about 24 percent of the students have acquaintances, who study in NCKU. Therefore, those students can access more information in NCKU and have a profound understanding in NCKU. Above are mainly the two reasons for foreign students to think about.

This is an important point. People choose NCKU for its educational standards. World rankings and academic reputation in Taiwan is the number one factor for why people choose NCKU. I wonder – is it before or after the decision to study in Taiwan that they consider NCKU’s education rankings?

From what I’ve seen, qualitative research approach if you like, this would be a positive point for foreign students from 3rd world or developing countries (South America, South-East Asia, Africa) while it would be a negative point for foreign students from developed well-to-do countries (Europe, North America, eh, Israel). The universities in Taiwan would need to decide whether they internationalize in order to serve as an education lighthouse for students looking to gain better education or in order to promote the university’s global academic standard by attracting high-level scholars and students. It is my impression that you can’t achieve both, as the two groups find it difficult to co-exist in the same educational environment.

Moving on, to obstacles :

Obstacles when applying for NCKU

We divided the obstacles into three aspects: Financial, Education, and Others. In financial part, 45% of the students think that the tuition fees are too expensive, and 55% think that the living costs are too high. In the part about education , 51.22% think that information of NCKU is insufficient, 19.51% think that the basic Chinese proficiency requirement is the problem, 17.07% think that the application procedure is too complex, and 12.20% think that the entry requirements is too high. In the other part, those who felt difficulties getting Visas accounts for 83.33%, and 16.67% have other problems.

Obstacles during the studies at NCKU

There are four parts of the question, Languages, Daily life, Culture and religion, and Education. We let them to number the priority, choose education as most influential is the most (76.36%), languages problem the next, and then the daily life. The percentage of Culture and religion is none.

These are findings I don’t understand and I think they reflect the research sample. I personally think living costs in Tainan are unbelievably cheap for countries with the same educational and economical standards. When it comes to tuition, there is no doubt that the Taiwanese tuition is one of the lowest in the world. I agree information about universities is insufficient  and wonder how could 49% think differently. I personally believe entry requirements are embarrassingly low when it comes to international students.

More?

The impression of NCKU:

Compared these two kinds of students, we discover that overseas Chinese students who know NCKU better than foreign students. Therefore, we think our school should try their best to promote our school in the western countries such as America or England. It is because that when we interview foreigners, many of them never hear NCKU before attending to study in NCKU.

The obstacle they met:

[…]  insufficient information is the biggest problem. Compared with us students who live in Taiwan, it is not so convenient for these students to know the information about NCKU. Therefore, the most convenient way for them is to surf the Internet. However, the web site of NCKU often fails to give them the information they need. According the response of the questionnaires, we concluded that it is caused, for we do not update the English version of NCKU website everyday and it is not so user-friendly to for non-local students. […]

The reason why they choose NCKU

[…] For the part of internationalization degree, there are about 36 percent of foreign students assume that NCKU is an internationalized university. However, the other 64% has opposite opinion. Second, about 24 percent of the foreign students have acquaintances, who study in NCKU. For overseas Chinese students, 38.05 percent of them writing this questionnaire have their acquainted friends studying in NCKU, and then its high internationalized level is the second factor to choose NCKU, holding 25.66 percent. […]

Since I’m already discussing this, I’ll quote a paper I’m not sure was made to be online, but since it is I feel more comfortable about bringing it up here – “Responding  to the suggestions / comment / opinion about ISAD and IMBA”  :

Positive :

• Professors are kind and open to students
• Classes are well organized/good teaching method
• Appreciate the education the variety of students
• Good at getting resources
• Sincere about wanting to help and solving problems
• Culturally respectful
• Open to feedback
• Make use of our education
• Give us more change to promote NCKU when we return to our countries
• Fantastic activities and trips
• Diverse program

Room for improvement (Fili – summarized):

• ISAD – More help, timely response…
• Chinese courses too expensive.
• IMBA general – Too many students, too few professors. Organization, standards.
• IMBA communication – Communication and collaboration with students, information sharing.
• IMBA courses – Academic standards, setting expectations, giving feedback, number and quality of courses, English support for NCKU websites.

You can read the official IMBA and OIA reply in the document.

Some interesting challenges for the Taiwanese universities here. Should they be interested, I know myself and a few other eager international students would be more than happy to help.