Written by a part-time social work associate professor, on how UNREALISTIC the policy of social workers being certified in the English language truly, is, off of the Front Page Sections, translated…
On the trends of globalization, and internationalization trend, to up the competitive edge internationally, the government is reinforcing the means of dual-language education, and the testing department, in correspondence with the policies, is planning on setting up the requirements to have the English language standardize tests into the requirements, as this news came, the social work realm started ranting, everybody thought this was an unreasonable rule, that it’s, incomprehensible why the government was, mandating this. In the realms of social worker, being culturally educated is way more important than being able to speak English fluently, the testing department shouldn’t set the standardized qualifying rules for social workers to be fluent in English, to pass the English standardized tests.
this…
Taiwan is a multicultural community, with the foreign spouses closing in to 540,000 and those who speak Chinese close to 580,000, and this data still excludes all the foreign workers, along with the children from the foreign spouses, but, it’d been proven, that there were the problems of cross-generation upbringing, and the employment issues from the natives and the migrant families, and the rates of domestic violence, child welfare and protection are a slight bit higher in ratio too. The population of women who are in the special conditions is higher than the other groups’, especially in recent years, the single parent families, and the cases of families on the lower end of the economic spectrum rising up fast; while the structures of social work had been providing the welfare programs to the general public, that instead, these help programs should be tailored to the varied needs of each individual and individual families specifically, and so, there’s, this necessity of the multicultural awareness and understanding.
Taiwan is now, impacted by the reduction of birthrate, the aging population, and in the implementing of the long-term care program, the trained professional social workers are, absolutely, necessary, and, yet, there’s, a very strict qualification for the certification of becoming a social worker, with the forty-five professional credits in the studies, more than four hundred hours of internship in the facilities. And now, for the sake of “globalization” the government had added the English language qualifications exams, ignoring the local voices, can it, really, resolve the issues, it’s, quite, doubtful.
The social problems that the social workers come face to face with, in order to understand the issues with each and every case, the primary way is to get to know the values, the life experiences of the cases who are soliciting the assistance, the cultural backgrounds of the various individuals, then, they are able to, provide, the best needed, assistance to them, and so, getting these social workers trained on the multiple cultural awareness is what’s most important in the now. Adding in the English language qualification exams, this will only drive the test takers to the cram schools, and, even if the test takers pass the exams, will they be helpful enough to the cases? I truly suggest, that instead, “adding the language courses for the natives and the newly migrants”, to enforce the communication means of the social workers with their cases, to bring the language to everyday living, to pull the social workers closer to the cases they’re assigned to, that, is what’s, more, practical.
is way more important than…
And this still just showed, how UNREALISTIC the policies those lawmakers came up with, that are being signed into legislation are, unrealistic, and they’re making the social worker majors, to add on, another fifty, sixty, even seventy more hours of English courses so they can pass their English certification exams, and the writer is absolutely RIGHT, on the fact, that the government should SLASH this rule of English language evaluations, and maybe, focus on the languages of the foreign care workers, the migrant workers’ home language, that way, these social workers will be able to help assist these cases even better!
Mirroring the World 