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.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS