National Pingtung University of Science and Technology (NPUST) was founded in 1924 under the name of "Kaohsiung State Pingtung Extension School of Agriculture." Subsequently in 1928, this school was expanded and renamed as "Kaohsiung State Pingtung Agricultural School". After Taiwan was liberated from Japanese colonial rule in August 1945, this school again changed her name to "Taiwan Provincial Pingtung Agricultural Vocational School of Agriculture" in November of that year. This school was then upgraded to "Taiwan Provincial Institute of Agriculture" in 1954, enabling a subsequent integration of this Institute with the Pingtung Agricultural Vocational High school in 1963. After this integration, the Institute went through a series of upgrades and name changes, including "Taiwan Provincial Pingtung Institute of Agriculture" in 1964, "National Pingtung Institute of Agriculture" in July 1981, "National Pingtung Polytechnic Institute" in July 1991, and then the "National Pingtung University of Science and Technology" in August 1997. Currently NPUST has a total of 27 departments and 32 graduate institutes offering Master's degrees and 8 Doctoral programs. These departments and graduate institutes are distributed among four colleges: agriculture, engineering, management, and humanities and social sciences.
NPUST's undergraduate school currently offers baccalaureate degrees to graduates of a four-year program and a two-year program. The four-year program admits students graduating from vocational high schools or their equivalents, while the two-year program admits students graduating from vocational institutes and their equivalents. NPUST has also established a night school to admit students with at least one year's work experience.
NPUST's graduate school offers master and doctoral degrees in more than thirty disciplines that cover the Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, Management, as well as Humanities and Social Science. A candidate to a master's degree requires a bachelor's degree in a related field; whereas, the doctoral degree is offered to researchers and professionals with a master's degree from any university. Graduate programs at NPUST also provide opportunity of part-time study during weekends for those with at least one-year work experience while holding current job active.
Moving towards specialized research university, NPUST actively pursues her academic excellence to become one of the key academic bastions in the Asia-Pacific Region. In addition to offering lectures in Chinese, NPUST also offers 106 credit hours of courses in English. In positioning herself to become one of the world's leading academic institutions, NPUST has established links with more than 30 world renowned universities through various academic exchanges, distance education, faculty and students exchanges, sharing of resources, and jointly conducting research.
The three main educational goals of NPUST are elaborated as follows:
Spiritualization – Through education, nurturing and warm caring, NPUST's students are positively influenced to develop a healthy and complete personality. NPUST's students are educated to become not only a competent professional but also a worthy member of the society with strong social responsibilities and a civilized person with fine intellectual and aesthetic tastes.
Professionalization – Constantly aware of the needs of labor markets, NPUST trains students to possess solid abilities to work, to learn and to create or invent to meet the demands of labor markets. Students are encouraged to pursue careers in scientific or technological research and development or in business management so as to enhance the promotion of industries in the nation.
Internationalization – In keeping with the trend of internationalization, NPUST's students are cultivated to acquire intellectual and aesthetic qualities enabling them to establish a strong foothold in the global community. The qualities to be acquired includes improving international language abilities, enhancing knowledge of international society, and understanding the development of international politics and economics. The final goal is to enable students to become more competitive internationally.
Feature areas
Education
Business, administration and law
Natural sciences, mathematics and statistics
Engineering, manufacturing and construction
Agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary medicine
Health and social welfare