After years of discussions and pressure from the Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP), National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) recently announced it would remove a controversial statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from its front gate.
University archives showed that up until 1977, the site where the statue was located was occupied by a fountain and that the statue that replaced it was produced by the university’s Department of Fine Arts.
Following the lifting of Martial Law on July 15, 1987, the university began discussing the eventual removal or relocation of the statue.
Martial Law was declared in Taiwan during the late stages of the civil war between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party on May 15, 1949, at a time when the KMT already controlled Taiwan.
Plans to remove the statue were opposed by faculty members and the move ended up in limbo.
The issue re-emerged three years ago when the TAUP petitioned school authorities to request that the statue be removed.
As Taiwan’s leading teacher training facility, the university should remove all traces of authoritarian idolatry, TAUP said at the time.
“Relics of authoritarian rule shouldn’t be placed at the front gates of a university,” TAUP president Tai Pao-tsun (戴寶村) said.
Former minister of education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) said that as Chiang was in large part responsible for the 228 Incident, a KMT crackdown in which as many as 20,000 people in Taiwan were killed, the meaning of education would be lost if schools presented him as an idol to be worshiped.
After years of debate, the university decided to relocate the statue, possibly to a special “statue park.”
NTNU professor and school services consultant Wu Wu-tien (吳武典) said that some still saw the statue as a symbol of authoritarian rule, adding that this was the reason visiting Chinese students did not take photos near the university gates.
A Department of Fine Arts student surnamed Chen (陳) said opposition to the statue’s removal was waning.
However, some university alumni said they suspected the decision stemmed from efforts to attract Chinese students, small numbers of whom are expected to start attending classes in Taiwan in the fall.
NTNU secretary-general Lin An-pan (林安邦) said the decision had no political significance.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
New Taipei City prosecutors have indicted a cram school teacher in Sinjhuang District (新莊) for allegedly soliciting sexual acts from female students under the age of 18 three times in exchange for cash payments. The man, surnamed Su (蘇), committed two offenses in 2023 and one last year, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. The office in recent days indicted Su for contraventions of the Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act (兒童及少年性剝削防制條例), which prohibits "engaging in sexual intercourse or lewd acts with a minor over the age of 16, but under the age of 18 in exchange for
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty