The Ministry of Education's (MOE) program to recruit certified foreign-language teachers failed to attract enough qualified applicants to teach English in public elementary and secondary schools.
To solve this teacher shortage, the ministry is considering accepting uncertified foreign teachers to teach English in Taiwan, according to Education Minister Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝).
"Our goal to have at least one foreign English teacher in each of the 3,300 elementary and secondary schools has met with some difficulties. We are discussing the possibility of recruiting foreigners with education degrees, but who do not have teaching certificates, to serve as assistant English teachers," Tu said.
Tu made the remarks yesterday during a two-day visit to Matsu to examine the local education system. At a meeting with local education officials and school representatives, elementary school presidents expressed their concern that schools in the area were suffering from a shortage of certified foreign English teachers, despite their active participation in the ministry's teaching program.
Responding to the comments, Tu said that the foreign teacher shortage is a problem shared by almost every elementary and secondary school in Taiwan. As public elementary schools must expand their English-language courses from the fifth grade to the third grade starting this fall, the insufficient number of foreign English teachers could become a serious problem for elementary schools.
"Currently, we have only 22 foreign English teachers recruited through the program, even though we signed service contracts with countries including the UK, Canada and Australia," Tu said. "The ministry is coming up with possible solutions, including recruiting uncertified foreign teachers to assist certified English teachers."
The program for improving the quality of English-language teaching through recruitment of native speakers in elementary and junior high schools was introduced in 2003. Currently, the ministry has signed contracts with Australia, the Canadian Trade Office and the British Council to aid in recruiting teachers.
According to the program's guidelines, prospective language teachers must be under 45, come from an English-speaking country and speak English as their mother tongue. They must also have obtained Teaching English as a Second Language certification (TESL) and possess a four-year degree from an accredited university.
With the a salary ranging from NT$60,000 to NT$90,000 (US$1,800 to US$2,700) a month -- about double the wage of Taiwanese English teachers -- the program costs the government about NT$510 million a year. The teaching contracts last from one to three years.
The program was designed to hire 1,000 certified foreign teachers each year, with the plan to send teachers to remote areas a priority.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS