The 7th Guangxi-Taiwan Higher Education Summit Forum took place in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region on Dec 18, gathering more than 180 attendees from both Guangxi and Taiwan online.

"We hope that the higher education institutions in Guangxi and Taiwan can enhance communication and carry out cooperation in vocational education, as well as the cultivation of applied talents," said Tang Yaohua, an official from the Guangxi Education Department.

Tang noted that there is vast cooperation potential between Guangxi and Taiwan in higher education as the number of students on campus in Guangxi's higher education institutions has exceeded 1.11 million, with the region's higher education entering the stage of being popularized, while higher education in Taiwan has already entered this stage and developed diversified forms.

"Undergraduate vocational education will have the most targeted audiences in the future and there will be the most demand for applied talents. Higher education institutions in Guangxi and Taiwan can team up in optimizing subject structure and talent cultivation models to better integrate the resources of companies and institutions," added Tang.

Yen-po Tang, president of China University of Technology, suggested that the talent cultivation models between Guangxi and Taiwan should be integrated with local industrial development. 

First held in 2014, the forum has seen the signing of cooperation agreements between more than 50 Guangxi institutions and over 20 Taiwan institutions. Guangxi has sent a total of more than 1,500 students for academic exchanges to Taiwan and over 500 teaching staff members since 2014.