To help students from the families in the lowest 20% income group finish their studies and secure opportunities to pursue a brighter future, NCUE has formulated projects, actions, and guidance mechanisms to assist them in achieving their graduation goals. The measures are as follows:

Under the Higher Education Sprout Project, disadvantaged students can receive all-round guidance in four dimensions: daily life, psychology, learning, and careers. In 2020, the Project’s 15 guidance projects helped 2,409 students; learning guidance topped the list at 46%, followed by psychological guidance (20%), career guidance (20%), and daily life guidance (14%). NCUE also continued to improve the management mechanism of bursary projects, ensuring the students’ economic safety during their studies and helping them study at ease until graduation.

2. NCUE integrates and coordinates resources to support students until graduation in the areas of daily life, learning, and careers.

The details of the different guidance projects are as follows:

2.1   Daily life guidance and psychological care—NCUE’s Higher Education Sprout Project uses target-based learning to help students improve their conduct and planning skills in the course of serving others to develop their work abilities for employment. The Project offers students various forms of living assistance, including campus meal coupons and emergency aid, to ease their economic burdens. They provide counselling resources and follow-up tracking to students with physical or mental disabilities, severe emotional distress, or special needs.

2.2   Learning guidance to identify the best students and assisting the competent ones—The Project helps students formulate learning plans and programmes, learn to allocate their time, and control their learning progress to enhance autonomous learning, cross-disciplinary learning, and learning guidance. It provides diverse empowerment and learning advancement, competency objectives, and Soaring Eagle Intensive Learning to the students’ knowledge, skills, and the scope of competency-based learning.

2.3 Career counselling that facilitates employment—By participating in empowerment lectures or training courses, the students are exposed to different issues and viewpoints to expand their outlook and develop their abilities through self-exploration and growth. The activities that enhance students’ career planning abilities include Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship (CIE) empowerment workshops, custom résumés, and mock interviews.

NCUE held numerous career-planning events.