Recently the media have reported that the Ministry of Education plans to ask the Academia Sinica to extend the conventional "bo po mo fo" phonetic system in order to phoneticize the Hokkien and Hakka languages. This is an immensely regrettable decision.
Whereas citizens of the People's Republic of China are able to input Chinese charac-ters using the common English keyboard, Taiwanese students find themselves handicapped as soon as they leave the country, as the "bo po mo fo" keyboard is only used in Taiwan.
It is unrealistic to expect students to have to memorize the appropriate keys matching the Mandarin-Chinese syllables, in addition to the far more useful English keys.
The fact is that students as young as five are already using computers.
To impose on them the necessity of using the "bo po mo fo" syllables to input characters is to limit their learning as children, as well as their future productivity as travellers overseas.
The far superior alternative is to begin teaching the Latin alphabet early in the education system.
Sooner or later students will be expected to learn tthis alphabet anyway; there's no reason, therefore, not to do so at an earlier age.
Extending the conventional syllabic system to Hokkein and Hakka, it seems, will only lead to the system's institutionalization in textbooks and computer software, the media, and pedagogy in general, with the above-mentioned disadvantages.
The goal of turning out citizens well-adjusted to the competitive rigor of globalization will surely be undermined by such entrenchment.
Henry H. Tan-Tenn
New Jersey Medical School
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