Minister Tu (Ministry of Edcuation), Education Ministers from participating countries, Vice Ministers, representatives, Excellencies Ambassadors from the Diplomatic Corps, honorable guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning!
It's a great pleasure for me to have been invited to take part in the opening ceremony of the 2007 ICT for a Better Education—Taiwan Experiences Ministerial Seminar. On behalf of the 23 million people and government of Taiwan, I would like to extend my most cordial and sincere welcome and appreciation to all education ministers, vice ministers and representatives for traveling such a long way to Taiwan to join this great event.
This seminar has specially invited 45 participants, consisting of ministers, vice ministers and representatives of Education Ministries and ICT-related Ministries, from 15 nations in Asia, Africa and the Pacific. This is the first time in many years that so many education ministers from different countries have gathered together in Taiwan to attend a ministerial-level meeting. This also shows how much governments have come to realize the importance of the theme of today's seminar -- ICT for a Better Education -- and are thus willing to join forces to make progress in this field.
This forum is an extension of the World Seminar for Education Ministers previously held in Britain. With the theme of integrating ICT with education, that world seminar invited representatives from different nations to share their country's experiences and attracted much attention from around the world. Taiwan was very active in that seminar, and our Education Minister Tu Cheng-sheng expressed Taiwan's high desire to share its own experiences and collaborate with other countries in this field. This helped bring about the holding of today's seminar.
Over the last decade, through the joint efforts of the public and private sectors, Taiwan has enjoyed outstanding development and progress in the realms of politics, economics, education and technology. Taiwan's achievements have won accolades from the international community. Despite facing a lack of natural resources, Taiwan has still managed to accomplish some enviable development successes, and I believe that investment in education, as well as the cultivation of talent, should be credited for such great achievements.
According to the 2007 Global Competitiveness Report released by the World Economic Forum (WEF), Taiwan performed extremely well compared with the 131 countries covered. Taiwan ranks 6th in Health and Primary Education and even higher, at 4th, in Higher Education and Training.
As a member of the international community, Taiwan is willing to be a responsible stakeholder and share with other countries its accumulated experience and successes in education development. Taiwan has plenty of prestigious universities and colleges that are well equipped with comprehensive teaching resources and excellent facilities. Besides serving the students of Taiwan, Taiwan's academic institutions also provide educational and training programs to students from countries that need our support. By doing so, Taiwan hopes to assist these nations bridge the educational divide and thus eradicate the negative effects that such a divide produces.
Over the years, through bilateral and multilateral cooperation and exchange projects, Taiwan's higher education institutions have helped other nations formulate programs for educational training and talent cultivation. These programs cover a wide variety of areas, such as economics and trade, industry, agriculture and the cultivation of high-quality human capital.
The government of Taiwan also offers Taiwan Scholarships and other subsidies to talented foreign students who deserve to have an opportunity to study here, and who can contribute what they have learned in Taiwan to their own nations on their return.
In the area of integrating ICT with education, the government of Taiwan has actively promoted the e-Generation Manpower Cultivation Plan, the Plan of Creating Digital Opportunity Centers for Rural Areas and the E-learning Construction Plan. These efforts have already proved to be very fruitful.
With our efforts to make ICT education available to all, we have managed to get a computer into every school classroom in Taiwan, and every town and county now has a fully functional digital opportunity center. The goal is to effectively minimize the digital divide between the urban and rural areas as soon as possible.
Taiwan is willing to share with other countries its experiences with promoting ICT in education. We are also very happy to cooperate with other willing countries to this end. Furthermore, we really hope we can concentrate the resources and strengths of industry, governmental agencies and academia, so as to effectively work with other nations to boost their ICT application, as well as bridge digital divides, and contribute to upgrading education worldwide.
Under the APEC framework, the government of Taiwan and industries here have worked together to push ahead with APEC Digital Opportunity Centers (ADOC). We aim to assist APEC developing member economies upgrade their ICT-application capabilities. Currently, we have set up digital opportunity centers in six ADOC partner economies, and have stationed ICT professionals locally on a long-term basis to provide training to local personnel and increase business opportunities.
By holding this event, we hope to build a global cooperative platform or a regional alliance for ICT education among the Asian, African and Pacific regions, which are the focus of this event. We hope that together we can map out cooperative programs for ICT education that benefit sustainable development. If successful, this model can be extended to other regions in the world in the future.
In addition, the forum organizers have also arranged several programs to give all participants a clear understanding of the ICT education work that has been done in Taiwan's elementary and junior high schools. Further, visits to Taiwan's most outstanding IT industries have also been included.
I hope that the participating ministers and vice ministers from each country will spend the next couple of days exchanging views, sharing your wisdom, and drawing up concrete proposals that will form a solid foundation for sustainable management and cooperation in the future.
Lastly, I would like to express my utmost gratitude for the efforts of our host, Taiwan's Ministry of Education, of our sponsors, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and of the organizer, Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund. May this three-day conference be a great success, and may everyone enjoy the best of health and every happiness. Thank you!