The Yilan County Government promotes "Materializing Digital Fairness by Sending Teachers to Elementary Schools" The launch ceremony was held at the library of Zhuangwei Elementary School this morning (Dec. 21th). Tzu-Miao Lin, Mayor of Ylan County, Hsin-Yun Li, Vice President of National Ilan University, Zhu Yu, Dean of College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Hong-Xiang Wang, Education Director of Yilan County, Shu-Ru Zhuang, Jin-Yong Huang, Councilors of Yilan County, Qing-Shan Shen, Mayor of Zhuangwei Township and Wang-Bin Zhan, Township Representative Committee Chairman all participated. The Science and Technology Education Team of the Ministry of Education and the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering of National Ilan University have cooperated for the first time. The college students have become a new force in science and technology education. They have entered remote elementary schools to teach the students twelve basic programming courses. The elementary students will be able to write their own shooting game of "fight COVID-19" with basic concepts of how the program works after completing the course. County Mayor Tzu-Miao Lin presented a certificate of appreciation to NIU’s Vice President Hsin-Yun Li, and also awarded it to NIU’s student Zhi-Sheng Lin. A total of forty-one NIU’s students have passed the program design course certification and thirty are initially selected in a charter investment plan. At the launching ceremony, everyone shouted together: digital technology wins! We made digital technology go to the remote countryside to have a good education environment in Yilan. Afterwards, the County Mayor Tzu-Miao Lin also entered the class to visit the students learning programming.


Mayor Lin considers the information literacy and the digital fairness issue seriously. Mayor Lin also shows appreciation to NIU for helping local school children get rooted in Information Technology courses. This collaboration project also contributes to the sustainable development of science and technology education in the county. The Yilan county Science and Technology guidance group designed and developed the “12-session basic programming curriculum,” which is an audio-visual teaching material for elementary schools. These new forces of science and technology education will take the initiative to reach out to remote schools with insufficient scientific and technological teachers to perform collaborative tasks. They instructed the 5 and 6 graders to use scratch programming tools, letting every student complete a shooting game of “fighting against COVID” to understand the basic concepts of programming.


Mayor Lin said, “Owing to the progress of new digital technology and the improvement of living, the development of digital technology, such as 3C, 5G and AI, has made the students living in remote sites have the equal right to education and have access to information and equal education. Thanks to the teachers of National Ilan University for their dedication in professional fields, the students have good development in programming skills. Hsin-Yun Li, The Vice President of National Ilan University, said “Digital technology is an important development direction in elementary schools, middle schools, high schools, and universities for the next generation. We can be able to cooperate with the government to join in the digital technology and programming discussion, so that the children in the county will have good development.


Due to approximately 60 percent of small schools in Yilan, it is difficult for schools to recruit teachers with technology expertise. In this case, the County Government implemented the “Sending Teachers to The Remote Area” program which exports the resources from the professors and students of NIU in 2014. Moreover, to follow the 108 curriculum guidelines, it seems more important to integrate the technology field in schools, and connect the force of business, government, and university to achieve the goal for good education for each child.

Throughout the connection with professors and students of NIU, the program not only benefits the small schools but also strengthens the depth and breadth of information courses in elementary school. Furthermore, by expanding to the (junior) high school, college, and Yilan Science Park, we aim to foster talent in the local technology field.