That’s just dumb lol
Apples and oranges. This isn’t when we grew up, Taiwan isn’t the states and Chinese isn’t English. If a kid in Taiwan speaks Chinese at school, they will get exposed to English a lot. Hard sciences, IT, entertainment, foreigners, traveling, etc. It’s really hard NOT to get exposed to English.
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They may get exposed to English, but that doesn’t mean much. Exposure is necessary but insufficient. Hence the desire for English to be the language of instruction and the rise of international schooling.
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It’s kind of complicated. Don’t want to share my life story for privacy reasons, but the answer to both questions above are “it’s kind of complicated” 
But I’ll give an example. In middle school, the textbooks were in English, and the teachers were all supposed to teach in English, but they usually reverted to Cantonese after 10 minutes.
So what if I didn’t have English textbooks during those 3 years, would I still be fluent in English? I don’t know. I also learned English in other settings.
What if those teachers stuck to their job and never reverted to Cantonese? Would my Cantonese still be fluent? Who knows.
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I was doing some work for the Shangri La Hotel group in Asia more than a decade ago. I had to go to KK and stay at the resort there to setup some of my services. The GM was from a British family and he also grew up in HK and went to local HK schools then to university in China. So he too had a multilingual experience from childhood but his at home language was English. He also spoke decent Malay as well which he learned from working in Malaysia.
Many hotels have staff from all sorts of backgrounds with senior staff having languages one might assume they don’t know. The GM of the Shangri la in Taiwan I was dealing with grew up in South Africa but his parents were from Germany. So German Africans English were three I know of that he spoke fluently.
My son’s first language is Taiwanese. Then he learned Japanese at kindergarten for 3 years. Completely forgotten now. Then mandarin for primary school in Taiwan. Then he went to Australia at 8 years old being able to say Hi goodbye and ice cream. When he lived at my sisters house she used to shout out ice cream to get him to run to her lol
Depending on family circumstances and also finances these two things decide a lot of schooling for kids. Most of my friends with local Taiwan partner send their children to local schools. I think the JNR SNR high school is harder for them than elementary.
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Exposure is everything. I had a total of zero subject courses with English as language of instruction, my parents didn’t speak English either. I speak English pretty much as good as anyone though I have a slight twang that is impossible to place.
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This sounds like me. 
Also, my previous career was in the hotel industry.
And do they usually graduate high school with fluent English and Mandarin?
Think we are taking about different things. Exposure can get you oral fluency, for sure, (but not always as every foreigner living in Taiwan would be conversant in Mandarin.)
I’m talking about exposure alone not being enough to understand a college law, biology, philosophy text and then write assignments about them.
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Need to be fluent in Mandarin to graduate from high school and get into local universities. There are families here were both parents are not from Taiwan and the kids have graduated from local schools they attended. Born and bred in Taiwan.
Good spoken English but fluent in reading and writing I have no idea.
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Cannot be too many children of expats who grew up in HK and worked in the hotel industry?
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Not to get too personal but I sure can understand and write (sans law) those fairly easily.
Anyways, one won’t get enough exposure to law jargon in junior high or high school anyways. You either are interested personally or go to law school. It’s much easier than most think to get a hang of English. There’s just so much out there.
I’m not saying just throw them out into the wild and they will magically improve their English. They should be encouraged to consume media in English as much as possible, but really that’s all it takes. There are YT channels out there about anything and everything. Lawyers, doctors, philosophers, wood workers. Anything you can think of.
I know of a couple (non-Chinese speakers) who sent their child to local school from the age of 6 onwards. They then went to Uni here and graduated with a medical degree. As part of the entrace for the course they had an interview where they were asked to read a Chinese paper to prove they were fluent.
Also know someone else who sent multiple children to local school, most of which then graduated and went to Uni here. They are all fluent and read/write, the parents speak no Chinese.
Also a 3rd case, much like the first but did computers instead of medicine.
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It’s always nice to see success stories of expat kids who go to uni in Taiwan instead of going back home to their home country.
If I have kids, that’s what I’d make them do. Much cheaper tuition. If they insist on going to the US, then they’re on their own.
Well, it is cheaper, but I asked around to a LOT of people who did grad school here, most of them on those government scholarships that give you NT$20-25k/month + pay your tuition. There isn’t a single person who didn’t tell me “you absolutely get what you pay for”. It’s more mindless memorization and parroting back to the professor what you think they want you to say. At that point, your degree isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on. If your goal for your child is that they have a pretty piece of paper that says “I finished an additional four years of school!”, I guess it doesn’t matter where they go to school. If your children want to do something with those four years of school, Taiwan is not the place for post-secondary ed.
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That’s pretty much how my business degree was back in the US. Daily readings to prepare for the multiple choice quiz. American professors like to say “read the textbook and make sure you know the material for the quiz”. That just translates to “memorize the book”, no?
My education in the US was a joke. All tests were multiple choice only, with no time limit. I could stay at the testing center all day and take my sweet time if I wanted to.
Although when I did a liberal arts major for a year, it was a lot better. More critical thinking, more discussions, more papers, no tests.
I did equally well in both majors. Doesn’t really matter to me how I learn the material. I learn it either way.
Both my undergrad and graduate degrees were more or less this. Plenty of my papers were me telling my professors why they (and their assigned readings) were wrong, backed by own cited and peer reviewed research, with me developing increasingly better rapport with said professors the more I did this (and only getting points docked for things id overlooked and deserved to get docked, like incorrect citations, but never for “not answering the question”). Never really had quizzes or tests except for the Chinese class that was run like a Taiwanese English class. Most quizzes in undergrad and grad school were “retake until you get the right answers its the only way you’ll learn”. Made me far more confident in my mistake making.
I would quit if I had to deal with memorize and parrot type education at any level.
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That sounds like my first job out of college. I spent more time “thinking critically” and telling my boss how he can do his job better, than actually memorizing the instructions and procedures for my own job. I didn’t last very long at that job.
In hindsight, I should have just stuck with the business major with the memorization and multiple choice tests. Would have helped me better remember and follow instructions at work.
Many born and raised in Taiwan. Taiwan is their home country. The foreign country is the one their parents came from.
Very different from Australia where passing tests only and you would fail your classes.
I prefer the Chinese method. I’m good at learning, but don’t like to be consistent.
In the US I had to study every day for daily quizzes which count for the final grade, whereas growing up in HK and China I could take it easy for a week and then catch up the following week, because only the midterms and finals count towards your final grade.