Premier William Lai (賴清德) will next year present clear-cut goals for the government’s plan to make English a second official language, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Kolas Yotaka said yesterday.
The Ministry of Education will present an official report to Lai in the next few weeks on its recommendations for adopting English as an official language alongside Mandarin, Kolas said, after Lai discussed the issue in an interview with the Chinese-language Economic Daily News published yesterday.
“I will set a policy goal next year to make Taiwan a bilingual country, with English and Chinese being its official languages,” Lai said in the interview.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
Lai late last year directed the ministry to form a “Committee to Promote English as an Official Language,” which was tasked with studying the issue, carrying out public surveys and drafting a plan on how to achieve the goal.
The ministry submitted the committee’s first report to Lai in June and is expected to present the second and final one by the end of this week or early next month, Kolas said.
The second report is to focus on ways and means of improving English teaching in schools, including establishing bilingual schools or classes and emphasizing spoken English, she said.
It will also deal with legislative issues such as the feasibility of deregulation to help promote a broad bilingual environment, Kolas said.
Earlier this year, then-minister of education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) told the Central News Agency in an interview that English competence did not equate to competitiveness, but it lays a foundation on which people can collect accurate information in a timely way, showcase professional expertise or express ideas without language barriers in the international arena, giving them a competitive edge.
“English proficiency opens up opportunities for young people,” Pan said. “We must do this for the next generation.”
Lai, who initiated a similar program in Tainan when he was mayor, has spearheaded the push to make English an official national language.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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