In a bid to increase Taiwan's competitiveness, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday promised to make English the nation's second semi-official language over a period of six years.
Yu made the remark in the Legislative Yuan in response to DPP lawmaker Luo Wen-jia's (羅文嘉) concerns that Taiwanese students' average TOEFL result ranked as one of the poorest among Asian countries last year.
Lo said that Taiwanese students' average TOEFL result ranked 20th among 23 Asian counties and he is worried that Taiwan's competitiveness might be jeopardized at a time when a knowledge-based economy is becoming the key to international competitiveness.
Yu said that, despite the fact that Taiwan has no officially declared language, Mandarin has been practiced by both the government and the public as a common language.
"To declare a second official language would involve complicated law-making processes. It would be tremendously difficult," Yu said.
But he also stressed that, based on the importance of English in the modern world, the government still plans to make English the second semi-official language.
Yu referred to President Chen Sui-bian's (
"The President's idea should be carried out. And, in fact, the government has already extended English education to begin at primary school and go all the way up to junior high school," Yu said.
In Monday's ministerial meeting on the six-year national development plan, the Executive Yuan has mapped out a preliminary English-as-second-language plan and included it in the development project.
The plan will be integrated with nine other facets of the development project before being discussed by a Cabinet meeting for Premier Yu Shyi-kun's approval in mid May.
According to Minister of Education Huang Jung-tsuen (黃榮村), who chaired a task force to study the possibility of making English the second official language, the Cabinet would focus on two major tasks to reach the goal.
"First of all, we would like to encourage the entire nation to learn the English language," Huang said. "Secondly, we'd like to push for online English learning."
To encourage the nation to learn the English language, Huang said, the Cabinet is considering extending the age of English learning to cover more younger and older learners.
"We'd like to see pre-schoolers start learning English and the elderly to attend extensive English-language learning programs," he said.
Currently, while some schools start offering English courses at first grade, others only start at fifth grade, depending on the school's facilities and resources.
The Cabinet also plans to encourage college and university teachers to use English as an instruction medium.
Although English is not the current official language, Huang noted that "English is the language which can connect Taiwan to the world, and it is necessary to learn it well."
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods