The latest incident involves the wife of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential candidate. Lee Chia-fen (李佳芬) called the Ministry of Education’s efforts to promote Hoklo a waste of time and resources. Fervent supporters might believe what Han and Lee say without question, but that does not bode well for society. It appears that the rationale behind Lee’s comment is that learning these languages in school instead of at home would hinder students learning foreign languages, namely English. The nation’s English education environment has long been incompetent — even when students were only learning Mandarin and English at school — and it definitely needs fixing.

Source: Taipei Times November 12, 2019 16:03 UTC