The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Los Angeles (TECO-LA) signed an agreement of cooperation with the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) on November 1, 2021, on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan). At the same time, a Collaboration Agreement on Chinese Language Education was signed virtually between National Taiwan Normal University and UCLA and witnessed by Director General of TECO-LA, Louis M. Huang. High-ranking officials and faculty of both universities, including Professor Cindy Fan, UCLA’s Vice Provost for International Studies and Global Engagement, Professor Zhou Min, Director of the Asia Pacific Center at UCLA, Professor Frank Yung-Hsiang Ying, Executive Vice President of NTNU, and NTNU Vice President for International Affairs, Lin Chun-Chi were among the attendees.

These signings are a result of joint efforts by the Ministry of Education (MOE), facilitated by the Education Division at TECO-LA, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The collaboration will include UCLA hosting Chinese teachers and teaching assistants selected by NTNU to provide Mandarin Chinese instruction, and awarding Taiwan Huayu BEST - Bilingual Exchanges of Selected Talent Scholarship, sponsored by MOE, for UCLA students to travel to Taiwan to learn Mandarin Chinese. 

National Taiwan Normal University will arrange for the scholarship recipients to assist English learning activities in elementary and middle schools in Taiwan. This will help the local Taiwanese students to enhance their English proficiency and better understand American culture, and being fully immersed in a Chinese language environment will benefit the UCLA students and provide them with opportunities to deeply explore the diverse cultures of Taiwan.

Director General Louis M. Huang spoke at the ceremony held at TECO-LA, saying that the agreement between TECO-LA and UCLA, to support the language education cooperation between NTNU and UCLA, is in accordance with the Taiwan–U.S. Education Initiative that was launched on December 3, 2020 to expand access to Mandarin and English-language instruction. It will also help Taiwan implement the English Language Proficiency Enhancement policy. He expressed his hope that this educational cooperation will help to cultivate a new generation of global citizens with international vision and cross-cultural communication skills, who are able to work together to shoulder the challenges of pressing global issues. TECO-LA will continue working closely with UCLA and NTNU to support and invigorate interest in Chinese language teaching and learning as they implement the signed agreements.