Poll shows 53.1% support English as official language

By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter





More than half of respondents say English should be designated as the nation’s second official language, an opinion poll on higher education and related issues released yesterday by the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation showed.

Respondents were asked what methods would increase university students’ English-language ability, with 53.1 percent selecting “designating English as the second official language,” 48.1 percent selecting “encouraging more classes to be taught entirely in English” and 44.9 percent selecting “setting English proficiency requirements as a threshold for graduation.”

English-language skills are important to enhance international competitiveness, poll committee convener Kuo Sheng-yu (郭生玉) said, adding that while more than half of respondents said English should be the second official language, the foundation has since last year advocated English-language classes at preschools.

Huang Kun-huei, president of the Professor Huang Kun-huei Education Foundation, speaks at a news conference yesterday. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

He said the foundation was happy to hear that Premier William Lai (賴清德) on Friday instructed the Ministry of Education to relax regulations to allow English to be taught in preschools.

The poll also showed that 46.8 percent supported liberalizing higher-education tuition fees, while 38 percent disagreed.

Poll committee member Feng Ching-huang (馮清皇) said that while the tuition fees of private universities are about NT$15,000 to NT$25,000 higher than at public universities, only 26 percent said the difference was reasonable, while about 60 percent said it was unreasonable.

Two children play an English-language game at a kindergarten in Taipei on Friday. Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

Former deputy minister of education Yang Kuo-shih (楊國賜) said the government should consider letting universities set their own fees, like those in many developed countries.

Even in China, fees at some top universities are about 10 times higher than the average in Taiwan, so it would be difficult for Taiwanese universities to remain competitive without liberalization, Yang said.

To enhance interdisciplinary competency, 71.7 percent said collaborative training provided by academia and industry is the best method, while 43.8 percent supported allowing first and second-year students to have undeclared majors, the poll showed.

Foundation president Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) said only 37.6 percent were confident that universities could produce competent graduates who enter careers that fit the needs of industries and improve economic development, while 56.3 percent were not condifent.

The poll asked about mismatches between skills graduates possess and those required in the workplace, with 56.5 percent saying blame lay mostly with employers, because they only want to earn money, while 54.9 percent said that universities should be held responsible.

The telephone poll was conducted from Sept. 13 to Sept. 16, collecting 1,068 valid responses from adults aged 20 or over.