The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) are manipulating students and are the source of discontent in schools nationwide in ongoing controversy surrounding the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Shu-hui (陳淑慧) said.
Chen was referring to students in more than 200 senior-high schools nationwide who have petitioned against the ministry’s decision to make changes that students said reflect a “China-centric” view.
The students also said the planned changes are illegal, referring to a Feb. 12 High Administrative Court ruling that the ministry must make its information more transparent and complete for public scrutiny.
Photo: Chen Yen-ting, Taipei Times
Chen on Friday said the opposition parties and pro-Taiwanese independence groups are manipulating and misleading the students because students lack sufficient information about the current affairs of the educational system.
“Complaints on materials listing the Himalayas as the nation’s highest peak are false and we are offering an award of NT$5,000 to anyone who can find any mention [in the adjusted curricula] that the Himalayas are the Republic of China’s highest peak,” she added.
Chen also defended the ministry in its appeal against the Taipei High Administrative Court.
While the court ruled that the ministry should make public the members of the Committee of Curriculum Review, the ministry has released other information, such as meeting records, and has not conducted any so-called “black box” meetings, Chen said.
KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) suggested that the ministry abandon the proposed changes, adding that it should negotiate with students about the content of the curriculum guidelines.
The process of learning is supposed to go both ways, after all, she said, with students learning from teachers and the teachers benefiting from students’ questions.
The approaching summer vacations might cause concerned parents to take to the streets in protest, and the nation could ill afford any accidents, Yang said, adding that as the ministry has taken a step back and not insisted on the exclusive use of new textbooks, the issue is not as pressing as it might appear.
“We should all sit down and talk about the matter,” Yang said.
DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) rejected the accusations of misleading students.
The KMT government and Chen are attempting to escalate the issue to a confrontation of pro-localization and pro-unification camps, Cheng said.
The issue is a question of the confrontation between truth and falsity, and the confrontation of education and politics, she said.
However, without full disclosure, the case should be considered as lacking transparency, Cheng said, adding that the ministry was afraid of making the list of members public because whether the ministry “cheated” would be easy to discern once the list is disclosed.
Lack of transparency is the very definition of a “black-box” operation and infringes on procedural justice, Cheng said, adding that the ministry is withholding information to keep the public in the dark and to buy time until the changes go into effect in August, creating a de facto victory.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most