Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) yesterday urged Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) to fulfill his promise to make native languages a mandatory course at junior-high schools or step down if he fails to do so.
“Chiang made the promise several times at legislative meetings in October last year, and was even berated by several members of the national curriculum outlines adjustment committee at a meeting on Nov. 11 for making a hasty decision before the conclusion of public deliberations on the new curriculum, as required by law,” Chen said.
Chen added that Chiang should resign if he broke his vow to make native-language courses — which are currently optional — mandatory, with classes being held at least once a week.
Photo: CNA
According to the ministry’s timeline, nine public hearings on the draft curriculum are to be held later this month. A final version is due to be published in July, one month before the 12-year national education program takes effect in August. It will officially implemented in 2018.
The 12-year program will make three years of senior-high school part of the compulsory system of education.
A member of the committee who requested anonymity said that the committee’s main task was to decide the number of class hours allocated to each course.
“There is really no way we can squeeze in an extra hour for native-language courses if we are to follow the rule of not increasing the total number of class hours,” the member said.
“The aim of the 12-year program is to put more emphasis on personalized learning, which is why we have refrained from increasing class hours for mandatory courses. Students can then have more time to choose subjects that interest them,” the member said.
Although the draft curriculum still marks native languages as an elective, it lists the mother tongues of “new immigrants” as the nation’s fourth native language other than Taiwanese (also known as Hoklo), Hakka and Aboriginal languages, the member said.
This means that children of “new immigrants” — mainly foreign spouses from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines — are now given the choice of learning their parents’ native language.
Taiwanese Mother Language League director-general Chou Ching-yu (周清玉) said she believed Chiang would honor his promise, as he risks offending many language teachers and pro-localization groups who have been closely following the issue if he does not.
When asked for comment yesterday, Chiang said he would make every effort to deliver on his pledge.
UNITED: The premier said Trump’s tariff comments provided a great opportunity for the private and public sectors to come together to maintain the nation’s chip advantage The government is considering ways to assist the nation’s semiconductor industry or hosting collaborative projects with the private sector after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 100 percent tariff on chips exported to the US, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. Trump on Monday told Republican members of the US Congress about plans to impose sweeping tariffs on semiconductors, steel, aluminum, copper and pharmaceuticals “in the very near future.” “It’s time for the United States to return to the system that made us richer and more powerful than ever before,” Trump said at the Republican Issues Conference in Miami, Florida. “They
GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY: Taiwan must capitalize on the shock waves DeepSeek has sent through US markets to show it is a tech partner of Washington, a researcher said China’s reported breakthrough in artificial intelligence (AI) would prompt the US to seek a stronger alliance with Taiwan and Japan to secure its technological superiority, a Taiwanese researcher said yesterday. The launch of low-cost AI model DeepSeek (深度求索) on Monday sent US tech stocks tumbling, with chipmaker Nvidia Corp losing 16 percent of its value and the NASDAQ falling 612.46 points, or 3.07 percent, to close at 19,341.84 points. On the same day, the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Sector index dropped 488.7 points, or 9.15 percent, to close at 4,853.24 points. The launch of the Chinese chatbot proves that a competitor can
TAIWAN DEFENSE: The initiative would involve integrating various systems in a fast-paced manner through the use of common software to obstruct a Chinese invasion The first tranche of the US Navy’s “Replicator” initiative aimed at obstructing a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would be ready by August, a US Naval Institute (USNI) News report on Tuesday said. The initiative is part of a larger defense strategy for Taiwan, and would involve launching thousands of uncrewed submarines, surface vessels and aerial vehicles around Taiwan to buy the nation and its partners time to assemble a response. The plan was first made public by the Washington Post in June last year, when it cited comments by US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue
MARITIME SECURITY: Of the 52 vessels, 15 were rated a ‘threat’ for various reasons, including the amount of time they spent loitering near subsea cables, the CGA said Taiwan has identified 52 “suspicious” Chinese-owned ships flying flags of convenience that require close monitoring if detected near the nation, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, as the nation seeks to protect its subsea telecoms cables. The stricter regime comes after a Cameroon-flagged vessel was briefly detained by the CGA earlier this month on suspicion of damaging an international cable northeast of Taiwan. The vessel is owned by a Hong Kong-registered company with a Chinese address given for its only listed director, the CGA said previously. Taiwan fears China could sever its communication links as part of an attempt
RSS