Elaine Hou -Focus Taiwan
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
A Taiwanese government-funded agency said Tuesday that it will send 14 certified teachers to Latin America and the Caribbean later this year to teach Mandarin Chinese.
The teachers will be sent to Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti and the Dominican Republic to teach and help promote bilateral cultural exchanges, said Weber Shih (secretary- general of the Taipei-based International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF), at a regular news briefing.
They will teach at local universities, government agencies and institutes related to diplomatic affairs, according to TaiwanICDF.
This will be the second year that TaiwanICDF has dispatched Chinese teachers to Taiwan's diplomatic allies and other countries with good relations with Taiwan to meet local demand for learning Chinese, Shih said.
TaiwanICDF, which is responsible for Taiwan's foreign aid programs, noted that it sent 11 teachers to teach Chinese in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Paraguay, Panama, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Palau, Jordan and the Solomon Islands last year, a move that received positive feedback.
Prior to 2014, TaiwanICDF sent volunteers to teach Chinese, rather than professional certified teachers.
