In order to achieve the goal of moving towards bilingual nation in 2030, the Ministry of Education Taiwan announced the programme on bilingual education for students in colleges and universities in Taiwan on 20 April 2021, focusing on promoting the development and popularization of the two main axes, strengthening students' English proficiency, promoting all-English courses (or EMI course), and improving the international competitiveness of higher education as a whole.

In conjunction with "Expanding Bilingual Manpower" and "Resource Sharing and Inter-school Cooperation", the program will invest $2.5 billion in forward-looking programs from 2021 to 2024 to help colleges and universities gradually optimise the bilingual environment for higher education, strengthen EMI teaching energy and promote Higher Education institutions to work together to spread the culture of all English learning on campus to all country and move towards to bilingual nation.

The Ministry of Education Taiwan said that the launch of the ‘Programme on Bilingual Education for College and University Students in Taiwan’ has a certain degree of foundation, according to the Ministry of Education and the British Council survey found that at present, about 21%of 12th graders in Taiwan reached the CEFR B2 level; that means, 1 out of 5 of the 12th grade students obtain the basic ability to take all-English courses, and nearly 7,000 college and university teachers are qualified to teach courses in all English.

The Ministry of Education Taiwan explained the key training programme will transform the university colleges with international competitiveness into "exemplar institutions" or become the professional faculty into "exemplar faculties", to train bilingual professionals in the professional fields, and serve as a model for the implementation of bilingual education in major higher education institutions in Taiwan.

By 2024, there will be 3 and 6 of the “exemplar institutions" by 2030; 18 by 2024 and 30 by 2030 of the "exemplar faculties" with student’s performance as a key indicator,
including the enhancement of students' English proficiency and the enhancement of students' professional bilingual skills.

The goal by 2024 is "25-20-20", with at least 25% of sophomores in exemplar institutions and the exemplar faculties, whose English proficiency in 4 skills (listening, writing, reading and speaking) is fluent and above CEFR B2 level; at least 20% of sophomores and first year of PG students are taking more than 20% of the course credits are taught in English.

The goal in 2030 is "50-50-50". At least 50% of the sophomores in the exemplar institutions and the exemplar faculties, whose English proficiency in 4 skills (listening, writing, reading and speaking) is fluent and above CEFR B2 level; at the same time, at least 50% of sophomore and postgraduate students will have at least 50% of their current year's credits taught in full in English, and will also promote EMI qualification for their graduation degree to align with international and industry standards.

For more information about the BEST programme, please contact British Council Taiwan, Head of Education, Diane Hsu at diane.hsu@britishcouncil.org.tw