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Poor English skills are hurting nation's competitiveness

Taiwan is losing competitiveness to its Asian neighbors, especially in the finance and electronics industries, as the job market is faced with a shortage of English-speaking professionals, according to an academic report released yesterday.

To remedy this situation, experts urged the government to create a white paper on international language policies, and asked companies to offer English training courses.

The report was prepared by the Web-based education and training information provider 104 Corp, National Chengchi University and the Taiwan branch of the Educational Testing Services (ETS) to find out the differences between students' English-language capabilities and employers' expectations.

According to ETS, Taiwanese students scored an average of 523 on the TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) last year, ranking eighth among Asia's 15 markets. Compared with its neighbors, the nation's English prowess lagged behind that of Singapore (628), Hong Kong (539), South Korea (537) and Thailand (524).

`WORRYING'

"This is quite a worrying situation. Taiwan's competitive edge has been declining over the years," said Chen Chao-ming (陳超明), dean of the foreign languages and literature college at National Chengchi University.

The report found that, in terms of job categories, Taiwan's marketing personnel have a better command of English than their world counterparts, as their TOEIC tests scored an average of 598, as opposed to the global average of 500.

However, English skills shown by the nation's customer service personnel, engineers and professional assistants lag behind international averages.

"The finance and electronics industries have faced the biggest gap of supply and demand in language talents," which require frequent interaction with overseas customers or consultants to facilitate business operations, said Benjamin Wang (王星威), president of the Taiwan branch of ETS.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電), the world's largest supplier of made-to-order computer chips, for example, requires their engineers to possess fluent English skills in listening, speaking, reading and writing.

PROMOTIONS

Its smaller rival United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) also takes into consideration employees' English capabilities when making a promotion decision, said Monica Chiu (邱文仁), marketing director of the 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行).

"Sometimes companies have to lower the application threshold, as only a minority of job hunters can meet their high standards. But we have observed that in financial and high-tech companies, workers must have very good English skills to survive," she added.

Taiwan has around 300,000 college graduates every year, with 60 to 70 percent of that number joining the job market during the same year.

IMBALANCE

Due to the unbalanced resource distribution between urban and rural schools, students' English performances are unequal.

"Fifty percent of junior high school students are forced to give up English, but some of their classmates' English is close to that of native speakers," Chen said.

To rectify the worsening situation, the report suggested that the government revise educational policies to abolish monthly exams on English and push for smaller classes. Meanwhile, businesses are advised to invest in employees by offering practical language courses.
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