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.
‘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 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
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and