On Monday, November 22, 2021, Tunghai University and the Embassy of St Vincent and the Grenadines(SVG) in Taiwan signed a Memorandum of Understanding son Tunghai’s International Elite Cultivation Program which affords St. Vincent and the Grenadines a total of 40 scholarships; eight scholarships per year for a five year period. These tuition scholarships are offered to Vincentian undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students and become tenable from the beginning of the Spring/February Semester, 2022, in all nine colleges/departments at Tunghai University, a release states.

The signing ceremony Monday was attended by a number of University officials; the diplomatic staff of the Embassy as well as Ambassador Elizabeth Chu, Taiwan’s first resident ambassador to St. Vincent and the Grenadines; and members of the New Taipei Branch of the Tunghai Alumni Association. Ambassador Chu is the Vice Chair of this Association and it was her “generous energy” which provided the liaison between the SVG Taiwan Embassy and Tunghai University. Speaking at the signing ceremony, Ambassador Chu described the moment as “historic” and reflected fondly on her two and a half years of service in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The University’s President Wang said he hoped that these scholarships would allow Vincentian students to form lasting friendships and developmental partnerships with Taiwanese students.

Ambassador Bowman thanked the President and by extension Tunghai University for the demonstration of extraordinary generosity as she echoed Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves’s expression of the “heart-warming” nature of this gesture which would redound to the benefit of more than 40 Vincentian families. She went on to say that, “…a number of our students who are already in Taiwan would now be able to benefit from today’s signing…these 40 scholarships are a fitting tribute to the forty years of unbroken diplomatic relations which our countries have shared.” 40 scholarships mark 40 years of diplomatic relations with ROC