Teacher drive seeks to meet English plan
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.bilingual teacher qualification
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 , 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.
Last month, four Malaysian students took teacher
qualification assessment exams in Taiwan, the first time since the
revisions, ministry official Lee Yu-chuan 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.
