The National Languages Committee was established in 1928 by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China with the purpose of standardizing and popularizing the usage of Standard Chinese (also called Mandarin) in the Republic of China. The Committee was known in English as the Mandarin Promotion Council or the National Languages Promotion Committee until 2003, but the Chinese name has not changed. The phrase Guoyu (國語 "National language") typically refers to Standard Chinese, but could also be interpreted as referring to "national languages". The phrase Due to the reorganization of the Executive Yuan, the duties of the National Languages Committee were transferred to the Department of Lifelong Education's fourth sector (Reading and Language Education), starting from 2013.