The Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages’ Indonesian-Mandarin, Thai-Mandarin and Vietnamese-Mandarin dual-language illustration and multilingual video materials are serving as a cross-cultural model for gender equality courses, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE).
Citing Ministry of the Interior statistics, the MOE said that as of mid-2024, Taiwan is home to about 600,000 marriage immigrants and more than 810,000 migrant workers, mainly from China, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Second-generation immigrants number more than 400,000, making new immigrant families about 10 percent of the population, it added.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
The statistics show that there is a need for multilingual and cross-cultural education in Taiwan, as these families and workers are deeply involved in Taiwanese education and society, the MOE said.
Addressing such needs was the MOE’s 2022-2025 strategic research program for the development and release of pro-equality educational materials, which encourage universities to develop new materials aligned with their specialty areas, Department of Student Affairs and Special Education official Lin Pei-yu (林沛雨) said yesterday.
Lin cited Wenzao’s use of illustrations, translations and multimedia platforms to establish a model for promoting multilingual gender equality education, highlighting the university’s grasp of its social responsibility.
The university’s platform centered on Indonesian-Mandarin illustrated books as its primary research methodology, encouraging students to create gender equality materials for in situ education involving children from families of Taiwanese and people from Southeast Asia, China, or Hong Kong.
Follow-up materials for the Thai-Mandarin and Vietnamese-Mandarin groups highlighted gender equality issues that migrants face in Taiwan, and the university subsequently created a YouTube channel to expand the program’s online reach, according to the MOE.
University students visited other schools and the Kaohsiung Immigrants Center to expand the program’s influence at the community level, it said.
The course results show that students begin to consider stereotypical gender images and can understand the concept of female autonomy, it added.
Gender equality education must be conducted in tandem with research, scheduled courses and social implementation, and the use of multilingual materials and online platforms allows the dissemination of information beyond school campuses, Lin said.
The program aims to create a mutually respectful, equal environment where people from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds could live their lives and feel safe, she added.
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