Letter: Universities and independent schools pass the Taiwan test

Sir: Hamish McRae's dig at this university ('Our industries must pass the Taiwan test', 16 December) is both cheap and inaccurate. Foreign student numbers at Oxford have grown very substantially indeed. They now form 19.1 per cent of our total intake and a phenomenal 42.7 per cent at the graduate level. Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of East Asia.

Since 1975, the percentage increases are: Japan, nearly 200 per cent; Taiwan, 560 per cent; Korea, 1,300 per cent; China, completely off the scale. We have offices in East Asia, exchange agreements with their most prestigious universities, and our vice-chancellor has made official visits to all the Pacific rim nations almost every year in recent years. As chairman of the university's International Committee and as a scientist with strong academic and cultural connections with East Asia, I have also frequently visited the Pacific rim to develop Oxford's connections there.

East Asian students' interest in our strengths in both the sciences and the humanities is reciprocated by our own interest in their cultures. Our Oriental Faculty has greatly expanded, particularly in Japanese and Chinese studies, to which we are now adding Korean studies, helped generously by the Korea Foundation and Korea Research Foundation.

It is hard to see how Oxford could do more to benefit itself, and the UK economy, via its reputation in East Asia. If there is a Taiwan test for industry, we pass it with flying colours. Other universities in the UK could tell similar success stories.

Yours faithfully,

DENIS NOBLE

Chairman

International Committee

University of Oxford

Oxford

16 December