Number of Taiwanese Student Studying Abroad Grew 7.12% in 2016

Early this year, the Ministry of Education (MOE) released the number of Taiwanese students studying abroad for 2016.

Key Findings:

● Overall, the number of Taiwanese students studying abroad grew 7.12%. The data combines both studying with student visa and without student visa, across all types of programs.

● US continues to be the most popular destination with 21,127 students, in terms of numbers.

● Germany, Canada, and Australia experienced strong YoY growth, with 61.2%, 37.91% and 32.9% growth respectively. Meanwhile, Norway and Denmark grew from 11 to 20 (81.82%), and 23 to 33 (43.48%), respectively.

● While the number of most countries either remain stable or fluctuate from year to year, the number of Australia, Canada, and Japan keep growing; nevertheless, that of U.K. is on the contrary.

Analysis

● Taiwan is still a very strong market for study abroad if you measure it on a per capita basis. However, what the data is showing us is that Taiwanese today are considering a broader range of options than just US, UK, Canada & Australia, expanded to countries in Europe and Asia.

● We feel that the increase in student enrollment to Canada, Australia and Japan is the direct result of the working holiday program between these countries and Taiwan. The data shows a "spillover" effect from the working holiday scheme. Students tend to go over to these countries through the Working Holiday scheme, then they decide that they would like to stay there a bit longer and some of them stay on to pursue more education and eventually, the students may eventually choose to immigrate there.

● The implication of these trends is that it is becoming more challenging for schools to recruit these students as many of these students are bypassing agents entirely.