West Virginia and Taiwan sign Educational Cooperation Agreement
Representative Bi-khim Hsiao witnessed the signing ceremony of a memorandum of understanding on education cooperation between Taiwan’s Ministry of Education and West Virginia’s Department of Education on February 28. State Superintendent of Schools David L. Roach represented the West Virginia Department of Education.
West Virginia has maintained a partnership with Taiwan since August 4, 1980, with close bilateral trade, investment, education and cultural exchanges. Through this official educational agreement, Mandarin Chinese and English language teaching will be expanded and educational and academic exchanges between educational academic personnel and schools at all levels will be encouraged. The agreement lays a more solid foundation for future bilateral education cooperation.
This is in keeping with the U.S.-Taiwan Education Initiative which Taiwan and the United States signed in December 2020. Its aim is to strengthen bilateral cooperation on international education, especially in the field of English and Mandarin Chinese language education. The West Virginia government is actively encouraging schools and universities in the state to cooperate with Taiwan. Since 2021, Monongalia County has hired three teachers from Taiwan to teach Mandarin Chinese courses in primary and secondary schools in the county, with excellent results. In December 2021, West Virginia University and National Sun Yat-Sen University signed an agreement on the Huayu BEST Program to promote bilateral language exchanges, making West Virginia University the first university in the state to cooperate with Taiwan.
On the same day, Representative Hsiao received a citation from the West Virginia Senate and House of Representatives reaffirming West Virginia's commitment to strengthening its partnership with Taiwan. The achievements of this partnership are based on the hard work and mutual trust of all the associated personnel in Taiwan and West Virginia. Representative Hsiao thanked all the working partners in West Virginia and said that she anticipated even closer cooperative relationships between West Virginia and Taiwan in the future.
