New Delhi: The Education Division of the Taipei Economic & Cultural Centre (TECC) in India signed an MoU with Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education (KARE), Tamil Nadu to set up the first Taiwan Education Centre in the Madurai region.
This is a milestone for educational institutes in this region to work with Taiwan for Mandarin teaching and further academic collaboration.
Representative of the TECC, Baushuan Ger witnessed the signing ceremony and said, “The joint collaboration would be a positive step in making the two countries mutually connected through the medium of education. We the TECC in New Delhi and the TECC office in Chennai will facilitate the academic exchanges between KARE and universities of Taiwan. Currently, there are 3,000 Indian students studying in leading universities in Taiwan. We expect this number will further increase in the near future.”
Vice President Dr. Shashi Anand said, “Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education (KARE) has been serving the society for thirty-five long years and it caters to the needs of the students from all walks of the society. It is very important to have our internationalization reach out to Taiwan in East Asia. We have Mandarin courses for our students and will conduct student exchange programmes and more academic collaboration in the future.”
“KARE offers UG programmes, PG programmes and Ph.D. programmes. Eleven of the undergraduate engineering programmes are accredited by ABET, USA. The Institution has been re-accredited by NAAC with an ‘A’ grade. Six UG programmes have been accredited by NBA under Tier-1. Institute is ranked 60th in engineering category and 72nd in the university category in NIRF ranking 2020,” Dr. P Sarasu, Director of International Relations added. The institution continues to do indefatigable work in getting projects and research centres. It has received DST funding to establish the National Centre for Advanced Research in Discrete Mathematics.
The Education Director, TECC, Peters Chen said, “as per the MoU, the Taiwanese teacher will conduct Mandarin classes for the students and help students gain Mandarin language skills and information regarding studying in Taiwan, including available scholarships, internships opportunities, and so on. TEC@Kalasalingam will create opportunities for the students to KARE to learn the Mandarin language, join an internship programme, and to further enhance their career development in Taiwan or at Taiwanese industries in India.” The COVID-19 pandemic has affected education a lot, but KARE has started to prepare virtual exchange programme with Taiwan’s universities, as well as outreach activities through university-level MOUs.
In 2011, Taiwan Education Centre started its first centre at O.P. Jindal Global University, Haryana. Since then many centres have opened in various universities including Rashtriya Raksha University, IIT Bombay, IIT Madras, Amity University, Jamia Millia Islamia, etc. The establishment of the centers throughout the years not only has fostered the exchange of education but also has acted as a medium to know more about the culture of the two nations, their economic and social development.
