If Taiwan is serious about retaining its traditional languages, the move towards mother-tongue teaching will be part of a process of standardizing and developing languages to the point where they can be used, along with Mandarin, as mediums of instruction.
If Taiwan reaches this point, then parents will presumably take much of the burden off the school system by ensuring that their children are adequately exposed to these languages at home.
But, in the meantime, this transition will not be easy. New materials will have to be written and teachers will have to be trained.
Children who are not proficient in the "mother tongues" will be required to study them, just as generations of non-Mandarin speaking children have been required to study Mandarin.
However, it is helpful to remember that in recent years, many other societies have successfully made this change. There should be no reason for language policy reform not to work in Taiwan, providing it is done before it is too late.
Although more and more children are growing up unable to speak Taiwanese languages, the fact that these languages, especially Taiwanese Hokkien, are still widely spoken in Taiwan means that the cycle of language loss can still be reversed.
Nevertheless, no-one should have the illusion that Taiwan can continue to transmit its traditional languages to the young without the full support of the public education system.
And, no-one should forget that when languages are not passed on to younger generations, they die, and when they are dead, there is no bringing them back to life.
Matthew Ward is a lecturer at Jin-Wen Institute of Technology (
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