Overhaul necessary in English education

`We as a society can not be satisfied with only having a few exceptional students who have studied overseas, but must strive to make the average student that learns here in Taiwan proficient in English.'

In recent years much attention has been paid to the lack of adequate English education in Taiwan.

Most recently, Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) criticized the Ministry of Education for writing an English educational agreement that was riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

Even the spellings of the names of the two nations that the agreement was between (Taiwan and Palau) were inconsistent throughout the document.

This is just the most recent event exposing the deep flaws in Taiwan's English education system.

The English level of the average Taiwanese citizen, even those in the Ministry of Education who set English education policies on the island, is inadequate.

In last year's Standardized National University Entrance Exam over 15,000 of the students who took the test received a score of under 10 percent on the English section. These students had undergone six years of English education and yet they scored in the single digits.

This should be an outrage to the Taiwanese taxpayer and should have incited major educational reforms. Instead, government officials and educational policymakers are pointing fingers and finding new problems, when they should be proposing ways to fix the old ones.

We all know Taiwan is a small nation that does not have a high profile on the international stage. We also know from our daily lives that how we speak and how we write affects how others think of us.

When communicating with foreigners we need to use fluent and correct English to give others a good impression of us and of Taiwan.

We as a society can not be satisfied with only having a few exceptional students who have studied overseas (like Ma), but must strive to make the average student that learns here in Taiwan proficient in English.

This means that we must not only eliminate spelling and grammatical errors (like the ones made by the Ministry of Education), but we must also give students enough exposure that they are capable of understanding and speaking spoken English.

Our current English education system is training students in mute English. They are only learning to read and write, and even in that regard they have problems.

Ma and other officials need to take responsibility for the state of our English education system. Recognizing the problem and doing nothing to solve it is unacceptable.

If they continue to point fingers and pass the buck then it is up to parents and average citizens to demand change for the sake of their children's education.

Jerry Hua is the founder of the Hua Language Institute.