President Chen Shui-bian (
"Educational reform is the reexamination of policies, not a tool for partisan feuding. I can't agree with some political parties, who are manipulating the issue to deepen the conflicts in our society," Chen said yesterday at the DPP's regular Central Standing Committee meeting.
Speaking in his capacity as party chairman, Chen's comments came just days after hundreds of academics delivered a petition to the government on Saturday protesting the chaos in the educational system and the changes made to it in the past decade.
In the past 10 years the government has tried to make the educational system less rigid and diversify the educational opportunities available to students.
The academics, however, slammed both the KMT and DPP administrations, saying that both should be held accountable for the current chaos, which not only failed to equalize educational opportunities but increased the pressure on students.
"Success or failure, educational reforms concern the future of every child as well as our country. We can't allow any political selfishness or trickery to affect this issue," Chen said.
He said that looking to the future is a more responsible way to behave than casting the blame for the past.
"Honestly inspecting the problems, listening carefully to what the parents and students say and finding practical solutions should be the basic attitudes the government and society should have in order to improve our education," Chen said.
Chen also praised his wife Wu Shu-chen's (
Chen refuted PFP Chairman James Soong's (
"We can't agree with Soong's remarks because the treasures of the museum are the precious assets of every citizen and the common cultural wealth of all humans. While Taiwan owns these beautiful assets, we shouldn't be prevented from sharing them with the world," Chen said.
Saying that Wu's trip was a hard-won opportunity for Taiwan to conduct diplomatic visits, given China's constant efforts to isolate Taiwan, Chen called on Soong and opposition parties to support such a rare achievement instead of siding with China's stance and undermining the nation's diplomatic confidence.
Chen said cultural exchanges are a useful tool to promote the nation's international visibility and an effective channel for conducting diplomacy.
In other developments, Barry Lam (林百里), chief executive officer of Quanta Computer, delivered a speech to the Central Standing Committee about the influence of the technology industry on overall economic development.
Quanta is the country's largest computer-laptop manufacturer.
Lam suggested five elements for improving technological development in Taiwan -- the government's stable financial policy, abundant human resources, as well as the sufficient supply of water, electricity and land for industries.
Chen praised Lam as a model entrepreneur for pioneering a prosperous technology industry. He said the government is seeking to improve the nation's investment environment through legislation, protection of intellectual property rights, human resource cultivation and technique innovation.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching