On January 10, 2023 the British Council and Ministry of Education (MOE) were signing the contract of “Taiwan Ministry of Education English Medium Instruction in Higher Education Evaluation Project” and invited British Office Taipei Representative, John Dennis, MOE, the Minister, Pan, Wen-Chung, and Political Deputy Minister, Lio, Mon-Chi to attend the signing contract ceremony. The British Council will assist the MOE in understanding the current implementation of the bilingual program at our colleges and universities, and use the evaluation of the effectiveness of the program as feedback and reference for the MOE’s subsequent implementation of the bilingual program.

The MOE began to promote the Program on Bilingual Education for Students in Universities and Colleges in the academic year 110, with the targets of “strengthening students’ English proficiency’’, “promoting English-Medium-Instruction Courses”, and “enhancing the overall international competitiveness of higher education”. The plan is divided into two main ideas: “Focused Cultivation Program” and “Comprehensively Increasing Capabilities Program”. There are 4 schools which are approved as “Cultivation Schools”, 25 schools with 41 colleges are approved as “Cultivation Colleges” and 37 schools are approved as “Comprehensively Increasing Capabilities Schools”.

The British Council is committed to promoting exchanges in the fields of language, education and culture, and has worked with many countries to promote English-Medium-Instruction (EMI)-related affairs (including consultation, counseling and evaluation) around the world. In the past year, the British Council has assisted the MOE not only in setting key performance indicators for the bilingual program and provided consultation on the EMI quality frameworks, but also conducted workshops to help schools promote the bilingual program through school development strategies and management, and teaching-learning quality assurance and evaluation strategies.

The Minister of MOE, Mr. Pan, expressed his pleasure to witness the cooperation between the Republic of China (R.O.C., Taiwan) and the United Kingdom (UK) in promoting bilingual policies, hoping that we can continue to promote the exchange of language education between the R.O.C., Taiwan and the UK, strengthen students’ English proficiency, and enhance the overall competitiveness of our higher education. The representative of the British Office Taipei, Mr. Dennis, also expressed hope that the enhancement of English teaching and learning, would not only help both sides to understand each other, but also provide an important way to help students in the R.O.C., Taiwan connect with the world.

The cooperation contract was signed by Director of the Department of Higher Education, MOE, Mr. Zhu, Jun-Zhang, and Director of the British Council Mr. Ralph Rogers, cementing the agreement between the MOE and the British Council to assist the R.O.C., Taiwan in achieving bilingual policies.