TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Over 20,000 students took Taiwan’s Hokkien Language Proficiency Exam on Saturday (Aug. 5), the highest number of test takers to enroll since the Ministry of Education began offering the exam.

The ministry said on Saturday that it began expanding the system of Hokkien testing at the start of 2023, and Saturday’s test was the second of the year. The first exam in March saw over 16,000 people register, while 20,044 people took the test on Saturday.

Students account for the majority of test takers, at around half of the total group, while about half the student group itself are under 12-years-old. The youngest test taker is 4 years old, while the oldest is 82, the ministry said.

In addition to Taiwanese, the ministry said individuals from Japan, the U.K., Malaysia, Singapore, and other countries have enrolled to take the exam. Results of the exam will be available in October on the exam system’s website, which can be found here.

Hokkien is one of the national languages of Taiwan, and is a variety of the Southern Min dialect of the Chinese language. The language variant used in Taiwan is more specifically referred to as Taiwanese Hokkien, and this variant is often referred to as simply “Taiwanese” or “Taiyu” (臺語).

In 2022, Taiwan’s executive launched a language development plan to address the diminishing number of Taiwanese Hokkien speakers, as well as the declining state of Taiwanese Hakka, Indigenous languages, and other Chinese dialects used in Taiwan. The plan includes several measures to enhance education in these languages, including increasing public awareness of and participation in language certification programs.