The government is allocating NT$424.7 million (US$13.23 million) to fund bilingual education programs in seven universities as well as colleges, in the 2023 to 2025 school years, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday.
The ministry launched a project in 2021 to help university and college students learn in a Mandarin-English environment as part of the government’s Bilingual 2030 policy. Universities that receive funding through the project should encourage faculty members to use English when teaching.
In the 2021 school year, a portion of funding from the Executive Yuan’s Forward-Looking Infrastructure Development Program was allocated to fund four universities to improve the bilingual environment: National Taiwan University (NTU), National Taiwan Normal University, National Cheng Kung University and National Sun Yat-sen University.
Photo courtesy of National Taiwan Normal University
For the 2023 to 2025 school years, three more universities have been selected for focused development of bilingual education: National Tsing Hua University, National Chengchi University and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
The seven universities are where the government would spend a considerable amount of resources and funding to cultivate bilingual learning environments, with the amount of funding received varying from NT$50 million to NT$82.5 million, the ministry said.
Universities seeking to qualify for the funding are evaluated based on criteria including, from the university’s structure and organization, student-teacher ratio, courses, resources and partnerships with domestic and international academic institutions, the ministry said.
In their applications, universities should also propose the amount of funding they need to achieve the project’s goal and ways to gauge their performance, it said.
Additionally, 44 colleges are to receive funding through the project in the next three years, up from 41 colleges in the 2021 school year.
Universities and colleges receiving the funding must reach a “25-20-20” goal in the following school year. This means that they must have at least 25 percent of sophomore students whose English proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing reach B2 or higher levels in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), and at least 20 percent of sophomores and first-year graduate students receiving 20 percent or more credits through courses taught entirely in English.
Some university presidents said that the ministry’s design does not distinguish between students who are admitted to top universities and those who are not.
“Universities like NTU can recruit the best students in the country, who can even be exempt from taking required freshman English courses. However, students in other universities might take some time to achieve the ‘25-20-20’ goal,” a private university president said.
National Tsing Hua University honorary professor Richard Lee (李家同), a harsh critic of the project, wrote on Facebook this week that he felt sorry for ministry officials, as the project was something they simply must do to satisfy demands of higher authorities.
“If the purpose of the project is to create bilingual learning environments in colleges and universities, then all universities and colleges around the country should be selected for the project, instead of choosing just seven of them... The reason that the ministry did so was because ministry officials know all too well that only a small number of students with high English proficiency can understand professional courses taught in English, and they know it is impossible for bilingual teaching to improve students’ English proficiency,” Lee said.
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) said that it was known from the beginning that every university is different in terms of resources they can offer and students they can attract.
“Schools that are ready to offer courses in Mandarin and in English can go first... Students can choose to be instructed in English or in Mandarin,” Pan said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS