Deputy Legislative Speaker Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) yesterday weighed in on controversy over the Ministry of Education’s high-school curriculum adjustments, saying the changes were “too minor” and “far from enough.”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential hopeful said in an interview with radio host Tang Hsiang-lung (唐湘龍) yesterday morning — who called the curriculum controversy “the most bloody, political and vicious machination” — that it is “wrong to call the adjustment process a ‘black box.’”
Defending the ministry against a court ruling that its conduct in planning and deciding the adjustment process was not transparent enough, Hung said that it was the composition of the curriculum adjustment committee, rather than the adjustments per se, that was admonished by the court.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
However, “consider this: If [the ministry] did make public the names of the members of the curriculum adjustment committee, given the prevailing political mood, no one would dare join the committee in the future,” she said.
“Even those who are rational and hard-working would not dare to do so, because they will be harshly criticized, humiliated or even harassed at their residence. How can the ministry make the list public?” she said.
Hung claimed that if the ministry had asked a group of academics who have a different political leaning, such as those who favor Taiwanese independence, to sit on the committee, “there definitely would have been no problem at all,” because KMT supporters would not harass those academics or make a scene “thanks to a different political culture.”
As for the curriculum adjustments, Hung said they were “way too minor” and “far from enough.”
“Almost nothing has been changed,” she added.
The curriculum guidelines have to be revised in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of China, Hung said, adding that the ministry had already been “compelled” to make concessions, such as allowing teachers to prepare their own additional teaching materials and promising that controversial parts would not be tested.
“History as a subject underwent a 180o change during the administrations of [former] presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁),” she said. “Were the names of curriculum committee members made public then?”
“We are simply returning [the curriculum] back to the right track — a track that is in accordance with the ROC Constitution,” she added.
Tang said he was “deeply concerned,” as the “Sunflower movement generation” who have been taught these revisions, now have a “distorted, self-rationalized and relatively self-isolated view of history.”
“Yes,” Hung said repeatedly, expressing enthusiastic approval of Tang’s remarks.
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RISKY BUSINESS: The ‘incentives’ include initiatives that get suspended for no reason, creating uncertainty and resulting in considerable losses for Taiwanese, the MAC said China’s “incentives” failed to sway sentiment in Taiwan, as willingness to work in China hit a record low of 1.6 percent, a Ministry of Labor survey showed. The Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) also reported that the number of Taiwanese workers in China has nearly halved from a peak of 430,000 in 2012 to an estimated 231,000 in 2024. That marked a new low in the proportion of Taiwanese going abroad to work. The ministry’s annual survey on “Labor Life and Employment Status” includes questions respondents’ willingness to seek employment overseas. Willingness to work in China has steadily declined from
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
RSS