Minister of education-designate Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) should set a firm timeline for withdrawing controversial high-school curriculum guidelines, students said yesterday.
About 20 students protested in front of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) headquarters in Taipei, demanding that the DPP keep its promise to abolish the guidelines.
The allegedly China-centric focus and opaque approval process of last year’s “adjusted” guidelines sparked a student movement that saw the forecourt of the Ministry of Education compound in Taipei occupied by demonstrators.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“After winning the January elections, the DPP has only stated that it supports the students’ position. It has not promised to absolutely withdraw the guidelines after taking power on May 20,” Taipei Municipal Zhong-lun Senior High School student Lin Chih-yu (林致宇) said, adding that the DPP’s promises were in danger of becoming “feel-good” slogans.
Students said National Taiwan University social work professor Lin Wan-i (林萬億) — a top policy adviser to president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) — had promised them in December last year that the DPP would withdraw the guidelines should it win the elections.
Lin said he was concerned the DPP might backtrack after seeing it shift its position on the cross-strait trade in services agreement and related supervisory articles after January’s elections.
Photo: CNA
The DPP has drawn criticism for draft supervisory legislation that would exempt the trade in services agreement from new approval requirements, a key Sunflower movement demand.
Lin said premier-designate Lin Chuan’s (林全) comments that any decision on the guidelines would be up to Pan were another reason for concern, because Pan had been involved in their drafting in his previous role as administrative vice president of the National Academy for Educational Research.
Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) on Friday said Pan was personally responsible for overseeing the approval of the guidelines, which drew a sharp response from Pan, who said he was forced to relinquish oversight and withdraw from the process after having raised objections regarding procedures and the composition of the drafting committee.
“I was vice president of the National Academy for Educational Research at the time and I was supposed to oversee the development of curricula. However, I was relieved from the role because I was opposed to revisions of high-school curriculum guidelines, as the Ministry of Education did not make the revisions according to legal procedure and those who participated were not qualified to make the changes,” Pan said yesterday. “I was not involved in the process.”
Taiwan Grassroots Education Alliance member Chang Wen-lung (張文隆) said it was critical that Pan make his position clear, because teachers are in the process of choosing textbooks for the upcoming school year, with textbooks based on both the old and new guidelines available.
“If the minister-designate can make a clear statement that the guidelines will be abolished after May 20, it will be easy for teachers to choose,” he said. “As things stand, teachers are vacillating, because the government has not decided.”
In response, the DPP’s Department of Youth Affairs’ Huang Shou-ta (黃守達) said that withdrawing the controversial curriculum guidelines has always been the party’s official stance on the issue, adding that the DPP legislative caucus has proposed amendments to provide a legal framework for future changes to curriculum guidelines.
Last month, 65 DPP legislators proposed a motion demanding that the Executive Yuan and the ministry withdraw the adjustments to curriculum guidelines announced in February 2014.
“The proposal is now being negotiated between parties and could be voted on by Friday next week at the earliest,” he said.
The DPP caucus has also proposed amendments to the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法) and the Primary and Junior High School Act (國民教育法) to make sure that curriculum guidelines will be decided in a professional manner, based on democratic principles and with the participation of the private sector, Huang said.
According to the proposed amendments, the ministry’s curriculum review committee is to be made a permanent organization instead of an ad hoc committee, with government representatives occupying less than one-fourth of seats on the committee, with the remainder filled by non-governmental representatives from educational institutions and groups recommended by the Legislative Yuan, Huang said.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the
RSS