According to the Taipei Times, there are many more Mandarin scholarships on offer. The article focuses on scholarships for United States citizens but I’m sure there will be other announcements for other nationalities soon.

MANDARIN COURSES: The education ministry is working with several US colleges to attract US students to take part in its three learning programs.

The Ministry of Education has set up new scholarship and study programs to attract more US students to study Chinese in Taiwan, the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) in Washington announced yesterday.

Taiwan’s deputy representative to the US, Tung Kuo-yu (董國猷), told a press conference that the ministry, in cooperation with several US colleges and universities, has launched three projects to facilitate and attract American students to participate in short-term and year-long language programs in Taiwan.

Local universities

Tung said that National Taiwan University, National Taiwan Normal University and Ming Chuan University have invited 180 students from 10 US colleges to study Mandarin here.

Each of the US colleges would send a group of students to study at a Taiwanese college of their choice, and each group would receive US$5,000 in grants. The University of North Carolina has already formed a group.

Sisterhood ties

A second program would allow US college students from states that have sisterhood ties with Taiwan to spend a summer studying in Taiwan.

Under the terms of the program, 20 US university students from 12 states will take part in a two-month Chinese-language course at National Pingtung University of Education.

Students under this program will each receive a monthly stipend of NT$25,000 while they are in Taiwan, Tung said.

Full-year courses

A third project sponsored by the ministry involves scholarships for select US students to participate in three-months to full-year courses to learn Mandarin.

TECRO has to date chosen 10 students from the University of North Carolina, Georgetown University and University of Maryland to take part in the specially designed Mandarin programs.

Web site

For more information on scholarship programs for American and other foreign students, see TECRO’s Cultural Division Web site at www.tecro.org.