Taiwan is stepping up efforts to recruit foreign English teachers to meet an expected rise in demand as the government seeks to transform Taiwan into a bilingual nation by 2030, the Ministry of Education said.
It aims to train 2,000 teachers to use English as a teaching medium by 2022 and to increase the number of such teachers to 5,000 by 2030 to meet the needs of the “bilingual country” policy promoted by former premier William Lai (賴清德), the ministry said.
As part of these efforts, the ministry in March last year amended regulations regarding teacher qualifications, allowing foreign nationals who complete educational courses and teaching internships in Taiwan to gain teaching certification at kindergarten, elementary, junior-high and senior-high school levels.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
Last month, four Malaysian students took teacher qualification assessment exams in Taiwan, the first time since the revisions, ministry official Lee Yu-chuan (李毓娟) said.
With the government’s goal in mind, Lee said that demand for bilingual teachers would only increase.
Taipei, New Taipei City and Tainan have promoted bilingual courses in the past few years, she said.
The Executive Yuan is also mulling the idea of relaxing employment regulations so that elementary, junior-high and senior-high schools can hire foreign professionals to teach courses other than languages, Lee said.
At present, foreign professionals can apply for teaching positions at universities, Taiwan’s overseas compatriot schools and bilingual schools, but can only teach language at elementary, junior-high and senior-high schools, she said.
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