The Examination Yuan said yesterday that questions on national examinations should be fair and steer clear of bias.
The questions on national examinations should not reflect the examiner's political ideology, touch on controversial issues or further racial or sexual discrimination, the Examination Yuan said.
According to the body, the examiners must not test on the intricacies of classical Chinese or irrelevant ancient Chinese literature. In addition, it is improper to test based on dialects that have not been accepted by the general public.
Examination Yuan members made the decision at a closed-door meeting yesterday morning.
Members were responding to the controversy over the use of Hokkien-language questions on exams for customs officials and police.
Although the passages in the exams were written in Chinese characters, they make sense only to speakers of Hokkien.
The questions prompted pan-blue lawmakers to cast doubt on the impartiality of national exams.
People First Party Legislator Chin Huei-chu (
She took the issue to the Control Yuan yesterday and petitioned for an investigation into the dispute.
"Control Yuan members should scrutinize whether the examination authority failed to supervise the examiner of these national tests and whether such an oversight had destroyed the authoritativeness of national exams," Chin told the Control Yuan yesterday.
She said the Control Yuan should determine whether it is acceptable that Taiwan's geography and history dominated the questions since current textbooks do not reflect this focus.
Chin also demanded that Control Yuan members review the examiners responsible.
In response, Examination Yuan Secretary-General Chu Wu-hsien (
He said the Examination Yuan will conduct any necessary reviews of questions that generate disagreements in society.
The Control Yuan, following Chin's demands yesterday, said it will investigate the dispute.
On Monday, Control Yuan Member Lin Shu-chi (
"It is indeed unsuitable and debatable to apply only one dialect in the national examination. But further investigation is needed before making a judgment on whether the questions broke laws or conflicted with the Constitution," Lin said.
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