In an exclusive interview with SuperFM radio, former minister of education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) voiced his thoughts on the controversy over high-school social studies curriculum changes, saying that Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa’s (吳思華) name would be tarnished by the incident.
Panels assembled to inspect curriculum material primarily sought to find problems in textbooks that had already been compiled and were being used, Tu said.
When problems were found with textbooks, the ministry would convene another panel to correct them using an executive order, Tu said, but added that such corrections were usually tiny.
The changes made this time are significantly greater in scale, to the extent that it has become an entirely new curriculum, Tu said, adding that accusations the decisionmaking process was illegal has allowed the curriculum to supersede the curriculum agreed on 2012.
It is an extreme expansion of the ministry’s powers in terms of administrative orders, Tu said.
When asked about changes to the curriculum during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, Tu said the alterations were on a small scale and only on inappropriate terms, such as the term, “mainland,” which could mean either a continent or China.
The consensus then was to change the term to “China,” he added.
Publishers were given the liberty of treating the consensus as a reference and allowed to make their own decisions, Tu said, adding that panel meetings were recorded and were given to lawmakers.
Everything was in the open and people invited to contribute were all experts in their fields, as opposed to the current changes, which saw history altered by people trained in finance and economics, Tu said.
Responding to claims by the pan-blue camp that the 2012 curriculum was based on a pro-independence ideology, Tu said that the issue should have been an academic one, but the pan-blue camp was trying to politicize the issue.
In terms of how the Ministry of Education handled the issue, Tu said Wu should be held accountable, as Wu did not recognize his role and function amid the controversy.
As minister, Wu had the power to stop the curriculum changes from going through, just as his successor did, stopping the 2009 curriculum from passing, Tu said.
By bringing charges against minors, he will go down in history with his name tarnished, Tu said, adding that Wu should step down, as that would do society a service.
Young people should have confidence in themselves and stand fast on issues where they should, but also give ground when they need to, Tu said.
The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has always wanted to table its version of the curriculum, but no history expert would go along with it, Tu said.
Tu criticized the Ma administration, saying it “viciously” took advantage of the fact that the young protesters were not “professional revolutionaries and social activists,” who were at a disadvantage in social terms.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS