China has been deleting references to Taiwan in textbooks used by Taiwanese schools in China, confusing students about their national identity, lawmakers said yesterday.
Showing textbooks collected from the schools, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Lo Chih-ming (
"In other words, the ROC does not, and cannot exist, in the textbooks that Taiwanese businessmen's children use," Lo said.
Lo said that textbooks with fragmented information would only confuse children.
"Children who continue their studies in Taiwan in the future will have difficulty in identifying their own country. I believe they will suffer from schizophrenia," Lo said.
The textbooks used by schools set up for businesspeople' children are printed by Taiwanese publishers and are the same as those used in schools in Taiwan.
In addition to the textbooks, Lo said, China assigns a vice principal to monitor teaching and textbooks used in the schools.
TSU Legislator Cheng Chen-lung (程振隆) also prepared an array of materials demonstrating the same problem. Cheng displayed Guangdong Province's rules that require the word "Taiwan" to be changed to "Taiwan Province." Guangdong authories also say that "the expression or ideas involving attacking China or harming national emotions need to be deleted."
According to the Ministry of Education, there are about 1,536 students studying in two schools for Taiwanese businesspeople's children -- the Dongguan School for Taiwan Businesspeople's Children in Guandong Province and the Huadong Taiwanese Children's School in Jiangsu Province.
The schools teach from kindergarten to senior high school level.
In July, the ministry opened four schools in Kinmen to accept businesspeople's children from Xiamen, but only 33 students have enrolled in the program.
Under intense questioning from lawmakers, Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) said the ministry had already identified the problem and had taken steps to amend it.
Huang said the ministry's Mainland Affairs Division had been holding summer camps since 1999 to teach children subjects they were prevented from studying in China and strengthening their knowledge of Taiwan's culture and society.
"We have insisted on our standpoint that the Chinese authorities can only truncate the contents but cannot add anything like propaganda," Huang said, adding that the ministry allocated NT$2 million every year to help the two schools give their students an education comparable to that in Taiwan.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tu Wen-ching (杜文卿) suggested that the ministry and the legislature's Education and Culture Committee should visit the two schools. Tu asked the Mainland Affairs Council to help arrange such a trip.
Council Vice Chairman Alexander Huang (黃介正) said that if the committee passed such a resolu-tion, the council would handle the case according to regulations.
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