A high-school civics textbook that touts the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as a “mature, democratic political party with integrity and the capability to govern,” runs counter to reality and aims to brainwash future generations, opposition lawmakers said.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee on Thursday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) took out the textbook published by Chuanhwa Publishing Co (全華圖書) while interpellating Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧).
A paragraph dedicated to the KMT in the textbook, which is designed for first-grade high-school students, states: “As the longest-serving ruling party in the nation, the KMT is a mature, democratic party with integrity and the capability to govern, and has played a critical role in the well-being of the country’s 23 million people.”
“The KMT has been embroiled in more than 100 legal cases since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office [in 2008]. Is this textbook trying to ridicule or praise the party?” Cheng said.
Cheng said the quoted content clearly did not tally with reality, particularly given the recent spate of corruption cases involving KMT members.
He added that publishing such untruthful statements was tantamount to an attempt at brainwashing future generations.
“Moreover, the textbook fails to make any mention of the DPP’s eight-year governance of the country [between 2000 and 2008] when introducing the party to young pupils, which is also inconsistent with history,” Cheng said.
DPP Legislator Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said that amid the ongoing graft cases involving former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世) and former Taipei City councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如) of the KMT, the textbook’s description of the KMT as a “mature party with integrity” could be the greatest irony promoted by the national education system.
“The textbook appears to have degenerated into political propaganda and forsaken every democratic value in this nation,” Lin Chia-lung said, calling on the ministry to reflect on the matter and make necessary changes.
Chiang said he would refer the matter to the Textbooks Review Committee, which was the main body charged with screening textbooks, adding that while the content of school textbooks was subject to public scrutiny, he “did not get the impression that the statements in question are praising the KMT.”
Yang Kuo-yang (楊國揚), director of the National Academy for Educational Research’s Development Center for Textbooks, said the textbook was granted a six-year approval license due to expire in 2015 and that the center would request its publisher to provide explanations or make necessary corrections should the review committee find its content inappropriate.
In response to media queries, Chuanhwa Publishing editor Tsai Yi-jung (蔡依蓉) said a formal inquiry in written form needs to be sent to the company before an official statement could be made on the matter.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS