Taipei, Nov. 28 (CNA) One of Taiwan’s private graduate schools has launched a scholarship program which will offer more than NT$1.2 million (US$37,143) each to 15 graduate school students in an attempt to attract outstanding pupils, the university’s president said Saturday.

An-Pang Kao, president of Kainan University in northern Taiwan’ s Taoyuan County, said at a two-day graduate school and career exhibition in Taipei that any student who has passed Taiwan’s top five universities’ gradual school admissions tests, but chooses to study at Kainan, which is not one of the top five, would be eligible to apply for the scholarship.

The scholarship will be awarded next year to one student enrolling in each of its 15 graduate schools.

The highest-ever scholarship program offered by the university would include a two-year tuition waiver which is valued at NT$200,000, with an additional NT$20,000 monthly scholarship for two years, which costs NT$480,000, plus an overseas study program at Japan’s Waseda University or Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S.– each worth over NT$600,000, Kao said.

Kao added that his university offered a scholarship of NT$300, 000 in 2008, but no student qualified for it.

Another university, Southern Taiwan University, which was upgraded from a college in 1999, also plans to offer a big scholarship- NT250,000 – for each eligible graduate school student.

Qualified students who pursue the university’s Ph.D. program can be eligible to apply for an even bigger scholarship of nearly NT$660, 000 — which includes a three-year waiver of tuition fees plus one-year study program at Japan’s Kumamoto University, an academic official at the Tainan-based university said at the exhibition.

Such generous offers by Taiwan’s universities contrast with that of overseas universities, which have substantially cut their scholarship programs, in the wake of the global financial turmoil.

A lot of California State universities in the U.S., for example, have canceled almost all of their scholarships for foreign students, according to an educational service company at the fair.

Shirley Hung, an official of the Taiwan Knowledge Bank, which organized the fair, suggested Taiwan’s university graduates should choose local graduate schools for advanced study, and then consider pursuing their Ph.D. in other countries.

Taiwan’s universities are suffering from a shortage of students due to the island’s declining birth rate and the relatively large number of universities in the country.

(By Liu Kwang yin and Fanny Liu)

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