President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) should make public their stances on the controversial “fine-tuning” of high-school curriculum guidelines, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday, criticizing what he called the Ma administration’s unwillingness to address the controversy.
“Because the curriculum guidelines have already caused so much controversy, the premier and the president should have made their stances clear long ago,” Ko said.
“The curriculum guidelines are their problem and it is their responsibility to resolve it,” Ko said. “Because the issue has not been properly addressed and the Ministry of Education did not deal with the student protests effectively, things got to the point where the police had to come in and clean up the mess.”
Photo: CNA
The adjustments to curriculum guidelines slated to go into effect on Aug. 1 have been controversial for an allegedly “China-centric” focus and “opaque” approval process.
Student activists and three reporters were arrested on Thursday for trespassing on ministry grounds during a protest against the changes.
Ko yesterday said that any decision on whether police officers would be disciplined for making the arrests would have to wait until the Taipei Police Department presented a full report.
Because of the police department’s vested interests, the report would be subject to a review by a city committee chaired by Taipei Deputy Mayor Teng Chia-chi (鄧家基), with the students and reporters involved invited to submit their views, he said.
Meanwhile, the ministry yesterday reiterated that it would continue to “cooperate” with the police investigation into the incident in accordance with the law.
Deputy Minister of Education Chen Der-hwa (陳德華) said that while the ministry would advise the public prosecutor to show leniency in cases where students were willing to apologize, there were no plans to drop charges.
He added that the students’ physical altercation with a ministry official who tried to prevent them from entering the building was subject to public prosecution.
Chen added that no decision had been made on whether or not to drop charges against the reporters who had been arrested with the students.
Separately yesterday, in a regular meeting at the Presidential Office building attended by Ma, Mao and Cabinet officials, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) made a presentation on the planned adjustments to the curriculum guidelines, but made no mention of the ministry’s much-criticized handling of the protest.
Wu defended the procedures the ministry had followed in proposing the adjustments as he said that they were in accordance with established precedents.
The 17 debatable items in the new version of the curriculum guidelines were in line with historical facts and the Constitution, Wu added.
In response to demands that the decisionmaking process be made transparent, the ministry has publicized meeting minutes and the conclusions of the curriculum review committee, Wu said, adding that the ministry would stand by its decision not to disclose what each review committee member had said and voted for at the meetings.
Making the information public “could have serious repercussions for the operations of the administration branch” because it would mean that individuals sitting on many other committees commissioned by the ministry or other governmental agencies would also become subject to the requirement, Wu said.
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday established a friendship group with their counterparts in Ukraine to promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. A ceremony in Taipei for the Taiwan-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Association, initiated by DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), was attended by lawmakers and officials, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) and European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan Director Lutz Gullner. The increasingly dire situation in Ukraine is a global concern, and Taiwan cannot turn its back when the latter is in need of help, as the two countries share many common values and interests,
RSS