The government’s “Bilingual 2030” policy is undeniably an ambitious blueprint aimed at enhancing Taiwan’s international competitiveness. However, as the policy trickles down to the classroom level, the gap between the lofty goals and the chaotic reality is widening. What was intended to be an educational transformation is devolving into a box-ticking exercise, characterized by fragmentation and excessive reliance on Mandarin Chinese.
A primary structural flaw is the inconsistency of the curriculum. In many schools, bilingual education is not implemented across all grade levels due to a lack of resources. A student might have a bilingual physical education class in third grade, only to return to a fully Mandarin-taught curriculum in fourth grade. This fragmented approach prevents students from gaining language proficiency and adapting to an immersive environment.
Furthermore, the quality of “bilingual” instruction is often compromised. Many subject teachers, forced to teach in English without adequate training or confidence, resort to a translation-heavy method. They speak a sentence in English, immediately followed by a Mandarin translation. Students learn to tune out the English and wait for the Mandarin instructions. This is not bilingual education; it is merely a performance that sacrifices the depth of subject knowledge and fails to improve English proficiency.
Rather than pursuing a superficial “coverage rate” in which schools merely claim to have bilingual classes to secure funding, the Ministry of Education should pivot towards quality and substance.
First, resources should be redirected to hire qualified teachers capable of delivering full English instruction. We need educators — local or foreign — who can create an immersive environment, rather than subject teachers who are struggling to translate their lesson plans. If the instruction cannot be delivered effectively in English, it is better to teach it well in Mandarin than to conduct a subpar bilingual class.
Second, there must be a shift toward developing cross-disciplinary English materials with a strong emphasis on reading proficiency. In an English as a Foreign Language environment like Taiwan, where opportunities for daily conversation are limited, reading is the most sustainable way to build language skills. Schools should be encouraged to develop their own English curricula that integrate topics from science, geography, or the arts, tailored to the students’ level.
The goal should be to foster the ability to acquire knowledge through English reading, rather than just learning English for tests. By prioritizing reading comprehension and recruiting teachers who can truly teach in the target language, we can move past the current “tokenism.”
The Bilingual 2030 policy should not be about how many schools have hung up a “Bilingual” plaque, but about how many students can actually use the language as a tool for learning. It is time to stop being satisfied with “just doing it” and start focusing on doing it right.
Kuo Chang-yi has a master’s degree in law from National Chengchi University. He is currently teaching English in an elementary school and training to become a bilingual teacher.
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
RSS