National Taiwan Normal University yesterday unveiled the result of this year's Aboriginal culture and language proficiency examination, with test-takers who lived in Aboriginal communities outshining other examinees.
A total of 6,950 Aboriginal students registered for the examination, but only 5,308 participated in the accreditation examination.
Up to 61.8 percent of the examinees passed the test, with those who lived with their grandparents or lived in an Aboriginal community performing better than those who lived in a non-Aboriginal community, Chen Hsueh-chih (陳學志), associate dean of the university's School of Continuing Education, told a press conference.
Examinees who obtained better scores either learned their mother tongue from childhood or had actively participated in the Aboriginal language classes offered in school or churches in Aboriginal communities, Chen said.
Female students generally performed better than their male counterparts, school CEO Huang Hung-cheng (黃鴻程) said.
The majority of examinees who passed the test were native speakers of Amis, with 1,166 people out of the 1,992 Amis test-takers receiving accreditation, school data showed.
Native speakers of Paiwan and Atayal who passed the examination came in second and third respectively, data showed.
Examinees who were native speakers of Saisiyat and Thao scored lower than speakers of other Aboriginal languages, the statistics showed.
“This means we may have to invest more resources to revive these two languages,” Huang said.
Vice Minister of the Council of Indigenous Peoples Mayaw Dongi, who was at the press conference, emphasized the need to encourage speakers of Aboriginal languages to use their mother tongue.
“There are about 5,600 languages in the world, but linguists predict that only 100 would survive a millennium later,” he said.
“Linguists also believe that a language will die if no more than 75 percent of its speakers actually speak the language,” he said, adding that losing the nation's Aboriginal languages would be a “huge loss” to humankind and Taiwan.
Mayaw said many people had criticized the accreditation examination system because students who passed it are granted bonus points when they take the high school or college entrance examinations.
“But granting preferential treatment to Aborigines is necessary because there is a substantial difference between the living environment of Aborigines and people of other ethnic groups,” Mayaw said.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS