Alleging that the Ministry of Education’s recent high-school curriculum revisions go against academic professionalism while also limiting students’ ability to think outside the box, a coalition of 16 groups said it is mulling further demonstrations to protest against the central government’s so-called “minor adjustments.”
The group issued the call after the ministry’s approval last month of the revised curriculum guidelines on Chinese literature and social sciences, which are scheduled to be implemented at the start of the new school year in September next year. Among the changes are calling Japan’s 50-year rule of Taiwan the “Japanese colonial period” and referring to “China” as “Mainland China” in textbooks.
The “minor adjustments” were actually major changes that will result in prohibitions and regulations everywhere, according to the coalition, which included the National Federation of Teachers Union, the Civic and Law-related Education Foundation, the Union of Taiwanese Teachers and the Civic Educator’s Alliance.
The group said the curriculum guidelines concerning the Taiwanese history portion underwent sweeping changes, affecting more than 36.4 percent of it. The subject’s fourth chapter was 56 percent longer, and much of the content was either erroneous or biased because amateurs spearheaded the changes, rather than experts.
The Martial Law era under the former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime was “prettied up” as the main driver of Taiwan’s democracy, and the White Terror was linked to post-war anti-communist policies, the coalition said.
“The changes were made with no regards to the controversial nature of the cases over the course of four decades of the Martial Law era,” the coalition said, describing it as an effort to establish credibility for an autocratic regime that stifled dissent under the guise of fighting communism.
As for the curriculum guidelines on civic education, the coalition said the revisions removed the necessary space to debate issues of national identity, national power, tyranny of the majority and the White Terror by enforcing the values of traditional “Zhonghua culture” (中華文化).
The coalition added that the revisions completely disregard the emphasis on being accepting to multiculturalism in the fourth Constitutional amendment in 1997, and creates the problem of overlapping courses and the uneven distribution of course weighting.
The increase of three classes of classical Chinese literature in Mandarin Chinese courses was another attempt to exert Zhonghua influence over students, the group added.
It is an underhanded way of increasing the proportion of ancient Chinese taught to students and the revision prevents Taiwanese high-school students from reading works written in the modern style, it said.
National Federation of Teachers Union vice president Wu Chung-tai (吳忠泰) said education was a serious matter as it shaped the next generations.
“The Ministry of Education is misusing its authority to change class curricula, not to mention the allegedly illegal procedures and questionable content changes,” Wu said, adding that the coalition was in the midst of planning protests against the changes.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) said the high-school curricula were — by law — legally binding orders [from the ministry to the schools] and should not be considered “internal rules” that could be decided by the ministry alone.
The Legislative Yuan would seek to abolish the legislation on which the ministry based its powers to change curricula, Cheng said, adding that the legislature would also push for education that did not “brainwash” the students.
The ministry, in its latest response, reiterated its emphasis that all changes have proceeded in accordance with regulations and that changes made put the materials closer to historical fact, adding that questions raised were “mistaken conceptions” of the changes.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as
RSS