In order to encourage Indonesian college students to study abroad, last year Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology established the Indonesian International Student Mobility Awards (IISMA). The first scholarships will be awarded in September this year to four hundred students of technical and vocational colleges and universities to promote their internationalization. The students selected to receive an IISMA for Vocational Students will spend a period of between four and six months at one of 46 leading partner universities, located in eleven different countries around the world, and they will engage in both classroom learning and hands-on workplace experience visits.

The selected universities are: eleven in Australia, ten in Taiwan, eight in the UK, six in South Korea, four in Malaysia, two in Germany, and one each in France, Hungary, Ireland ,Turkey, and the United States. The ten universities in Taiwan account for more than 20% of the total number, and the second highest proportion, indicating the well-established educational links between Taiwan and Indonesia. The ten universities are Asia University, Cheng Shiu University, Chung Yuan Christian University, Lunghwa University of Science and Technology, Ming Chi University of Technology, Minghsin University of Science and Technology, National Formosa University, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, National Taiwan Normal University, and Yuan Ze University. They were selected with the efforts and assistance of the Education Division of the Taipei Economic & Trade Office Indonesia.

The IISMA for Vocational Students will cover the costs of each student’s registration fee, tuition fee, economy class air fare, visa fee, settlement and living allowance (including accommodation), PCR test fee, quarantine and health insurance (including COVID-19), all subsidized by the Indonesian government.