How to Find English-Taught Programs in Asia Using Official Databases

Start with the official portal, not a search engine

Most students begin the search for an English-taught degree in Asia by typing the question into a search engine, and much of what comes back is written by someone who is paid when you enrol. Listicles, agent sites and forum threads dominate those results, and they share three defects: they are incomplete, they go stale, and they have an interest in your decision.

The better starting point is unglamorous. Most major destinations in the region run an official national study portal, or a government-backed one, built by the education ministry or an agency working with it — and several of them let you filter programmes by the exact thing you care about: the language of instruction.

This guide is a method rather than a listing. We do not reproduce programme lists here, because live listings change constantly and a copied list is out of date the week it is published. The portals are the list; what follows is how to use them well.

The official portals and what each one does

Each destination organises its official information a little differently, and knowing who runs what saves time — and tells you how much weight to give it.

Study in Japan is operated by JASSO in collaboration with MEXT and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and identifies itself as a government-approved information site. Its school search lets you filter by major, campus location and language of instruction, and it runs a separate scholarship search. Study in Korea is run by the National Institute for International Education (NIIED) and lets you search courses by major, area of study and medium of instruction, alongside a university search and a scholarship search covering the Global Korea Scholarship.

For the others, the picture is worth being precise about. Study in Taiwan is a government-backed portal rather than a government department: it is run by the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET), a non-profit foundation established by the Ministry of Education together with Taiwan's universities. For China, the Ministry of Education's official English site is the government reference to work from. In Malaysia, EMGS is the official international-student agency and the Malaysian Qualifications Register is where accreditation is checked; Study in Hong Kong is run by the Education Bureau; and in the Philippines, CHED publishes the official list of recognised higher education institutions.

• Japan — Study in Japan (JASSO with MEXT and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); filter by major, location and language of instruction
• South Korea — Study in Korea (NIIED); filter by major, area of study and medium of instruction
• Taiwan — Study in Taiwan, run by FICHET, a foundation established by the Ministry of Education with Taiwan's universities
• China — the Ministry of Education's official English site is the government reference
• Malaysia — EMGS for international-student information; the MQR to check accreditation
• Hong Kong — Study in Hong Kong, run by the Education Bureau
• Philippines — CHED's official list of recognised higher education institutions

Filter by language of instruction, then verify on the university's own site

The portals are for finding candidates. They are not the final authority on any given programme, and treating them as such is the most common mistake in an otherwise good process.

The reason is simple: a portal aggregates data supplied by hundreds of institutions, and that data lags. A programme may have changed its intake, its structure or its delivery language since the entry was last refreshed. The university's own official course page is current in a way an aggregator cannot be. This is true even of the strongest government-run portals, and more so of government-backed ones run at arm's length.

So run the filter, build a candidate list, then confirm each survivor on the university's own official programme page — and get anything ambiguous confirmed in writing by admissions. Our companion guide sets out exactly what to check and what to ask, because "English-taught" covers more variation than most applicants expect.

• Use the portal's language or medium-of-instruction filter to build a candidate list
• Open each candidate's own official programme page and confirm the delivery language there
• Treat the portal entry as a lead, never as confirmation — aggregated data lags
• Get anything ambiguous confirmed in writing by the admissions office

A repeatable shortlist method

The value of a method is that it survives contact with fifty tabs. Work destination by destination rather than jumping between them, and finish one before starting the next — mixing destinations is how requirements get confused between systems.

For each destination: open the official portal, filter by level and by language of instruction, and skim for fit rather than perfection. Capture candidates in a single sheet with a fixed set of columns, so that comparison later is mechanical rather than emotional. Then verify — language on the university's page, and accreditation or recognition through whichever body governs it in that system.

Only then look at cost, deadlines and scholarships, and take every one of those numbers from the official source rather than from your notes of a blog. This ordering matters: verifying first means you never spend an evening costing out a programme that was never going to work.

• Work one destination at a time, start to finish
• Filter the official portal by level and language of instruction
• Log candidates in one sheet with fixed columns
• Verify language on the university's own page; verify recognition with the relevant official body
• Only then research cost, deadlines and scholarships — from official sources

Why not agents, blogs and forums

This is not a claim that every agent is dishonest — many are not, and some are genuinely useful for paperwork. It is a claim about who should be the source of a fact. An agent is paid on enrolment, which makes them a poor authority on whether you should enrol, and a poorer one on whether a programme is genuinely English-taught.

Blogs and forums have a different problem: they are snapshots. A forum post about a programme's language of instruction, fees or deadlines was true for its author in their year, and quietly stops being true afterwards. Nothing marks the moment it goes stale.

One protective point deserves stating plainly. No agent, consultant or university representative can guarantee you admission, a scholarship or a visa — those decisions rest with the institutions and authorities that make them. Anyone offering a guaranteed seat, a guaranteed scholarship or a place in exchange for a payment should be treated as a scam and avoided, and reported where a reporting channel exists. Our dedicated guide covers agents and admission scams in more depth.

What to record for each shortlisted programme

Keep one row per programme and fill the same columns every time. The discipline matters more than the format: consistent records let you compare programmes on their merits, and they preserve the reasoning behind a decision you will make months later.

Record where each fact came from and when you checked it — the official page URL and the date. This sounds fussy until the first time a requirement changes between your research and your application, at which point it is the only thing that tells you what you actually knew and when.

Record the volatile items — fees, deadlines, scholarship amounts, score thresholds — but never treat your own notes as current. Re-check them on the official website immediately before you apply, because every one of those numbers is set by the institution or authority and changes between cycles.

• Programme name, university, level, and the official programme-page URL
• Language of instruction, and how you confirmed it (page, or written reply from admissions)
• Recognition or accreditation status, and the official body you checked it with
• Fees, deadlines and English requirements — with the date you checked and a re-check before applying
• Any written admissions reply, saved rather than summarised