MOE hosts 2019 Taiwan–France Educational Cooperation Meeting

The Ministry of Education and the French Office in Taipei held their annual educational cooperation meeting in Taipei on June 4. The two parties exchanged views on a wide range of topics, including cooperation in higher education, compulsory education and exchanges of language teachers of Mandarin Chinese and of French.

Mr. Andy Cheu-An Bi, the Director-General of the Ministry of Education’s Department of International and Cross-strait Education, and Mr. Benoît Guidée, the Director of the French Office in Taipei co-chaired  the annual meeting. They each reiterated their intention to expand Taiwan-French educational cooperation on its current friendly basis.

Mr. Bi thanked the French Office for its continued support of educational exchanges between Taiwan and France, for example, the assistance it provided when Mr. Bi led a delegation of 34 representatives from universities in Taiwan, to attend the France–Taiwan Higher Education Forum in Reims in July last year. During their visit, 12 MOUs were signed, adding to the 601 MOUs already signed between universities in Taiwan and France.

Both parties lauded the longstanding cooperation on the France–Taiwan Foreign Language Internship Exchange Program, which has so far benefited 327 young students. The Ministry and the French Office have decided to steadily expand the program and explore more teaching opportunities in France for language teachers from Taiwan. This will help to build a better linguistic and cultural base for mutual understanding between the two nations.

The Ministry and the French Office also reviewed the bilateral development of exchanges between senior secondary schools in Taiwan and those in France that prepare students for higher education (classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles), and they worked toward establishing channels for educators to share practical details of their experience in the  language, aesthetics, and philosophy education areas. The annual reunion serves as a testimony to the fruitfulness of their joint efforts in education.

Photo: The 2019 Taiwan–France educational cooperation meeting participants