Mission of Education

(Translated by Kay Chen)

Chinese version

In order to help solve the shortage of nurses on Taiwan's east coast and provide a source of nursing staff for the Tzu Chi General Hospital, and in the hope of training nurses who would be both skilled and compassionate, Master Cheng Yen established the Tzu Chi Junior College of Nursing in Hualien in 1989.

In order to train more medical personnel for the Tzu Chi General Hospital and to improve some inadequacies in the Taiwanese medical system, and in the hope of cultivating for society and all humanity doctors who would treat patients as they would their own relatives, the Master also established the Tzu Chi College of Medicine in Hualien in 1994.

The nursing school was upgraded to the Tzu Chi College of Technology by Taiwan's Ministry of Education in August 1999, and the medical college was upgraded to Tzu Chi University in the summer of 2000. The Tzu Chi High School and Tzu Chi Experimental Elementary School opened in September 2000. The establishment of these schools realized Tzu Chi's goal to set up a comprehensive educational system which offers education all the way from kindergarten to post-graduate studies.

In 1991, the first overseas Tzu Chi Youth organization was set up. In 1994, the first overseas Tzu Chi humanities school was established in the United States, which was the first step in the future expansion of the overseas mission of education.

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