"If students have the ability, they will naturally want to go abroad. This is not a bad thing for Taiwan either." Dai Xiangyu is packing his bags at the end of August to study at City University of Hong Kong from Taiwan. With a university entrance exam score of 72 levels and English at the top tier, he received a full scholarship. He frankly states that Hong Kong has tremendous appeal to him because he was simultaneously admitted to National Taiwan University's Information Management program, yet plans to take a leave of absence after registering and use NTU as a backup plan—this is what having sufficient ability and the power to choose looks like.
Dai Xiangyu believes that Hong Kong schools teach entirely in English, and the student composition is extremely diverse, not just Hong Kong students but also students from all over the world gathering in Hong Kong. However, this doesn't mean NTU lacks internationalization; rather, Hong Kong is more international.
From his perspective, we can understand why top students are increasingly leaving. After this year's college entrance exam results were released, Taipei First High School had 120 graduating students studying abroad, including 13 at University of Hong Kong, 15 at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and as many as 23 at City University of Hong Kong. Including mainland cities Beijing and Shanghai, a total of 77 students account for 64% of all students studying abroad. Even Taipei First Girls' High School and Affiliated High School have similar situations. Taipei First Girls' High School has a total of 27 students attending universities in Hong Kong and mainland China, accounting for 48%, while Affiliated High School has 24 students going to Hong Kong and mainland, accounting for 55%. Moreover, these numbers were zero just two years ago. What exactly is the reason?
Lin Yuzhé, another Taipei First High School student admitted to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, had already conducted research and participated in university expos by his second year of high school, clearly knowing his future goals. He said he chatted with NTU students and felt their abilities didn't meet his expectations. For instance, books assigned in their first and second years were ones he had already read—including economics, stock market, and markets. This made him feel that attending university didn't cultivate their own abilities, which is why he chose to go to Hong Kong to broaden his horizons.
Lin Yuzhé is about to head to Hong Kong University of Science and Technology to study business and management. He also pointed out that Taiwan schools place too much emphasis on theory, with corporate internships only available in junior and senior years. However, in Hong Kong, you can enter international corporate internships as early as your first year. The differences in cultivating international perspectives are significant. Although top students are leaving, they also frankly stated it's not that they can't come back—rather, they hope Taiwan will learn from this competition and continue improving its educational environment.
