Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (
Huang told reporters at a ministry press briefing that a recent statement on education by the pan-blue camp was "unprofessional" and "over-interventional."
On Monday, 14 pan-blue heads of county and city administrations delivered a joint statement on education policy, urging the ministry to abandon the current teaching methods and return to the old ones.
Junior high schools use the so-called "integrated instruction" method, in which teachers team up to instruct students in seven different subjects. The method is intended to make courses more relevant to one another.
The former teaching method championed by the pan-blue camp teaches students subject by subject.
The pan-blue camp heads also demanded an end to the practice of having private publishers print competing versions of school texts.
The pan-blues believe that a standardized textbook compiled by the government should be used instead.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Huang hit back, however, saying that the pan-blue camp's education policy was autocratic and inflexible, and that it was attempting to mislead the public into thinking the government was failing in its reform drive by creating problems that did not exist.
"It is frustrating to respond to these false questions," Huang said.
"I think they should allow more time to see the results [of the reforms], rather than giving the impression that the reforms are a fiasco," he said.
Huang said that a campaign ad produced by the pan-blue camp was an example of its underhanded tactics, making out that students were under a considerable deal of pressure, but without providing any information or statistics.
"In fact, the ministry has accepted the opinions and criticisms from the public and adjusted problematic policies step by step. And most of them are technical problems," he said.
"I believe that the direction the ministry is moving in is correct. The diversification in teaching and learning that we insist on is absolutely a mainstream value," he said.
Huang also said that other educational policies that the pan-blue camp advocated were actually policies that the Ministry of Education had been carrying out over the past two years.
Huang said these policies included simplifying entry into senior high school and college, increasing educational budgets and scholarships to study abroad and subsidizing students from impoverished families and minority groups.
Huang said that national educational polices could not be allowed to go back to what he called the bad old ways.
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