Six prestigious mainland universities will launch an undergraduate exchange program with "National Taiwan University" (NTU) next year, according to NTU President Si-Chen Lee.

Lee made the remarks at the Asian University Presidents Forum held at Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU). SJTU and NTU signed an agreement on the undergraduate exchange program Sunday.

"Agreements with the other five universities will be completed by the end of the year," Lee said.

The other five are Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, Fudan University and Renmin University of China.

Lee said "this exchange program, different from summer camps or forum events, focuses on undergraduate teaching".

Every semester, each mainland university can send two undergraduates to study in NTU and in return NTU will send two undergraduates to each mainland university.

The exchange students will be selected by the universities and will receive free tuition, with no restriction on what major they choose, according to Lee.

NTU, founded in 1928, is the best university in Taiwan. As early as 1995, NTU began exchanging graduate students with Peking University, but until now had no exchange program for undergraduates.

Lee said Taiwan and the mainland have the same roots and are free of language and culture barriers. He added that NTU will gradually increase the number of students involved in the academic exchanges.

(Xinhua News Agency November 27, 2006)