When Ronda Liu graduated from senior high school last year, she did not have any doubts on how to further her education. “Since I want to go into business, it was clear that I would pursue an MBA,” says the 19-year-old Taiwanese. Her path towards that degree is completing a BA diploma in business administration and then enrolling in another two-year programme right afterwards. Her curriculum is highly academic, and to get her final degree she will, apart from lengthy exams, have to submit a thesis.

Ms Liu, now in her second year at the college of commerce of Cheng Kung University in the Southern Taiwanese city of Tainan, is typical of the mainstream in Taiwanese business education. Over 90 per cent of the island’s management students enroll in programmes that eventually lead to a degree named “MBA” in English but resemble European Masters of Science in Management.