Taiwan wooing Thai students with scholarships – to study then work

The Taiwanese government is promoting a New Southbound Policy and a flagship project is cultural exchange. It encourages Taiwanese to work in Southeast Asia and India and is also providing more scholarships for overseas student from these countries to study in Taiwan. 
Under the Ministry of Education (MOE) Taiwan Scholarship, tuition fees and certain fees are waived. A student will get a monthly stipend of NT$15,000 (Bt17,000) for undergraduate students, and NT$20,000 for postgraduate students.
The number of Thai students who received awards from the MOE Taiwan scholarship is 15, up from 13 last year.
There are also scholarships for people to study short-term Mandarin Chinese courses in Taiwan, known as MOE Huayu Enrichment Scholarships. 
The ministry provides a monthly stipend of NT$25,000. And there are many Mandarin courses – for three months, six months, nine or 12 months. 
The MOE granted scholarships for short-term Mandarin study this year to 84 Thai students, up from 60 students last year. 
It says the number of Thai students studying in Taiwan ranked 10th last year, with a total of 1,749 students. 
Top three countries were students come from are China (41,981), Malaysia (16,051) and Hong Kong (8,662) – out of a total of 99,760 foreign students who did courses in Taiwan last year. 
Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen said recently that Taiwan welcomed foreign workers and encouraged overseas students who finishing their studies in Taiwan to work with Taiwan companies. 
Kanitta Saejang, 25, was a former student from Chiang Rai province. She said she did not receive full scholarship support but largely paid the tuition fee with her own money. Kanitta graduated from the National Taiwan Normal University in 2015.
She said she had studied Mandarin language for one year before taking an examination for studying at the National Taiwan Normal University. She did a part-time job while studying at the university and was able to earn enough money to pay her tuition fee, dormitory rent and food. Her tuition fee was over Bt50,000 a year and the university also provided some financial assistance. Rent at the university dormitory was about Bt8,000 per month. 
She has worked in Taiwan since completing a bachelor degree in Applied Chinese Language and Culture. She said she was satisfied with living standards in Taiwan and had no plan to come back to find a job in Thailand.
“Taiwanese are friendly, food is plentiful, the commute is convenient and the cost of living is not too high. So, personally I think Taiwan is a very good place for studying and living,” she said. 
There are 157 universities in Taiwan and 12 of them in the top 100 Asian universities according to the QS Asian 2016 rankings, and 10 in the top 100 Asian universities ranked by the Times Higher Education assessors last year.
For expenses, tuition and various academic fees for a bachelor’s degree is around $1,500–1,800 (Bt52,500-63,000) per semester while a master’s degree or PhD costs around $1,600-2,000 per semester. Meals cost $180-270 per month, while accommodation on campus is $30-200 per month or $200-600 per month off-campus, not including utilities.