US Secretary of Education Rod Paige has agreed with a proposal to exchange teachers with Taiwan through suitable channels, officials of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Repre-sentative Office in the US said Friday.
In a meeting with Taiwan's Deputy Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠) at his office on Oct. 30, the officials said Secretary Paige expressed interest in promoting exchanges of teachers with Taiwan after being informed that Taiwan was planning to recruit American teachers to teach English.
Paige was quoted as saying that he was well aware that Taiwan's elementary and middle school students had excellent academic records in mathematics thanks to their teachers.
Some schools in the US, he said, did not have sufficiently qualified teachers in this field. He believed that it is quite feasible to exchange teachers between the US and Taiwan.
Fan was accompanied at the meeting with Paige by Taiwan representative to the US Chen Chien-jen (
Fan told her host that Taiwan was planning to recruit excellent American teachers to teach English in the its elementary and middle schools to upgrade the quality of English teaching in Taiwan.
This would be in accordance with the implementation of the government's six-year national development plan, "Challenge 2008," which puts the development of human resources as a priority.
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