The conflict over the Ministry of Education’s changes to the high-school curriculum guidelines escalated as students broke into Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa’s (吳思華) office during protests, only to be arrested by police. Now there are reports that Dai Lin (林冠華), leader of the alliance opposed to the curriculum changes, has committed suicide to protest the changes.
While the students were impulsive and reckless, the ministry failed to communicate its stance and persuade students that the curriculum changes are reasonable. More so, after the conflict over the changes broke out, it did nothing to address the situation and in the end simply filed charges against the students who broke into the ministry. With this attitude, Wu has set a bad example for teachers and forfeited his position as a national role model — he is no longer fit to remain in his post. If he continues to hang on to his position, he will end up even worse off than former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), who was not welcomed back by teachers and students at National Taiwan University (NTU) after he stepped down.
The curriculum controversy is not a new issue. Controversy also flared up in 2009, when the curriculum established in 2005 was to be changed. The difference is then-minister of education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) stood up to the pressures of the government and the opposition and resolutely issued orders that the changes be halted so that the controversy could die down. In the current conflict, Wu does not have the strength to withstand the pressure. He misses opportunity after opportunity to address the situation and in the end the government, opposition and society at large will most likely be unhappy with his handling of the issue.
The controversy is in fact a reflection of social division: Be it historical outlook, the selection and interpretation of historical data or terminology, there is a great disparity between the pan-green and the pan-blue camps and between independence and unification proponents. The forcible use of the curriculum to restrict textbook content, forcing students to cram and memorize text and using test results and university entrance exams as threats to force students into compliance, at a time when Taiwan is becoming increasingly free and the roots of democracy are growing ever deeper, is not acceptable and not even high-school students are willing to accept this manner of authoritarian education.
If Wu wants to salvage his reputation after stepping down, what he can do now is to promptly announce that the ministry will withdraw its charges against the students and let the students’ respective schools handle the issue. That should be followed up by Wu personally explaining the proposed changes to the curriculum guidelines and how to handle controversial points. He should take pragmatic action in his status as education minister to show students how to handle controversy, disagreements and dissent in a rational and democratic manner. If divisions cannot be bridged, another way of saving the situation would be for him to follow the example of Cheng and halt the process. The worst of all bad choices would be to not rein in the horses at the precipice and instead stubbornly forge ahead.
The best way to resolve the long-standing conflict is to relax textbook requirements. To require that all books strictly conform to the ministry’s unified curriculum guidelines and demand that students uncritically memorize texts to be able to pass exams will only invite political forces to claim that the curriculum is being used to brainwash students. Such a totalitarian approach to education no longer conforms to the needs of society. The ultimate solution to the conflict over the high-school curriculum guidelines is to let publishers freely decide how to compile their textbooks, to let teachers and students at different schools choose suitable textbooks in a democratic manner and to let public opinion, through public debate, gradually merge and meld into a consensus on what kind of textbooks would be acceptable.
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