The first Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning in Ireland was inaugurated in Dublin on Sunday and will soon start accepting enrollment registrations, according to the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland.
During the opening ceremony, Taiwan's representative to Ireland Yang Tzu-pao (???) highlighted the Taiwan center's biggest differences with other similar institutions in Ireland, the office said in a statement.
There will be no limits when learning with the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning in Ireland compared to other schools, and that students will be in an environment that facilitates open learning, Yang was quoted as saying.
The Taiwan center is also comparatively more attuned with traditional Chinese culture and values through the use of traditional Chinese characters, Yang added.
Yang went on to say that he believes the freedom-loving Irish would support the values which the center will aim to convey in its classes.
The ceremony was also attended by the center's director Evan Furlong (???), Dublin School of Mandarin Chinese chairperson Hsu Hsiao-ping (???), Senator Gerry Horkan, and Dublin City Councilor Declan Flanagan, as well as other domestic and foreign dignitaries.
During the ceremony, Horkan said that as a member of the Irish parliament that was looking to cement a concrete relationship with Taiwan, he was happy to see the increase in collaborations between Ireland and Taiwan.
He added that with language as a tool, he hoped that the center would help advance bilateral relationships between the countries.
Meanwhile, Flanagan said he hoped the center could play an important role in the country's growing popularity of learning Mandarin, adding that in June, Mandarin would be added as an elective in Ireland's standardized high school examinations.
In her speech, Furlong thanked Taiwan's Cabinet-level Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) and the Taipei Representative Office in Ireland for their joint efforts in working with the Dublin School of Mandarin Chinese to make the Taiwan Center for Mandarin Learning in Ireland possible.
The Taiwan center in Ireland is one of 27 Chinese language centers the OCAC plans to open this year in Europe and the United States.
As part of its plan to support and collaborate with established Chinese language schools overseas, the OCAC worked with various groups to open 18 such centers in the U.S. and Europe last year.
Fifteen of the schools are in the U.S., with three others in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.
The OCAC said it plans to open a total of 45 centers in the U.S. and Europe in 2021-2022, including 35 in the U.S., two each in the U.K., France, and Germany, and one each in Austria, Ireland, Sweden, and Hungary.
Source: Focus Taiwan News Channel