Ministry of Education Delegation Visit to India Advances Semiconductor Personnel Training Collaboration
A 17-member delegation from Taiwan, led by Political Deputy Minister of Education Dr. Mon-chi Lio visited India in November 2023, to promote bilateral educational collaboration. The delegation consisted of vice presidents or deans from eleven universities in Taiwan: Asia University, Cheng Shui University, Kun Shan University, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, National Cheng Kung University, National Chi Nan University, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, National Sun Yat-sen University, National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, and Yuan Ze University.
On November 19, the delegation attended the Indo-Taiwan Educational Cooperation Forum on Semiconductors. The forum was organized by the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) which had led a delegation to visit Taiwan in September 2023. In his opening remarks, Prof. T.G. Sitharam, Chairman of the AICTE, praised Taiwan as a semiconductor super power, and said that he hoped that there would be more cooperation between India and Taiwan to train skilled professionals for the semiconductor field.
Deputy Minister Dr. Mon-chi Lio expressed the Ministry’s appreciation to AICTE for its support of educational cooperation with Taiwan, and the hospitality extended to his delegation. He also gave the Indian vice chancellors at the forum details of a new academia-industry scholarship. Officials from the eleven universities in Taiwan and from forty institutions of higher education in India then each spoke and outlined the fields in which their respective universities hoped to engage in collaboration.
That same day fifty MOUs were signed between individual universities in Taiwan and individual institutions of higher education in India. The MOU signings were attended by Deputy Minister Dr. Mon-chi Lio, AICTE Chairman Prof. T.G. Sitharam, Baushuan Ger, Taiwan’s Representative in India, Dr. Liao Kao-Hsien, Deputy Director General of the Minister of Education’s Department of International and Cross-strait Education, and Prof. B.S. Murty, Director of IIT Hyderabad. Some of the 50 MOUs include agreements to develop joint degree programs in semiconductor-related fields.
During their time in North India, members of the delegation visited the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi), Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT Delhi), Delhi Technological University (DTU), and STMicroelectronics, a global hi-tech company with its headquarters in Switzerland. They also attended an award ceremony at Mount Abu Public School for Indian winners of awardes in the 54th World School Children’s Art Exhibition, an art exhibition, organized in Taiwan, and interacted with school principals whose schools have found partner schools in Taiwan on the International Education Taiwan 2.0 website (IETW2.0).
This visit established a solid groundwork for long-lasting collaboration to develop human resources with semiconductor skills to meet India’s needs and strengthen bilateral educational exchanges with Taiwan.
