Curriculum reform and splitting up science and arts students will be among the primary concerns of teachers and academics when they gather for a national conference on the development of high school education today and tomorrow.
The two-day conference at the National Taipei Teachers College will focus on future directions for high school education, including the modification of curricula to meet the demands of the college entrance examination and the more diverse workplace, Department of Secondary Education Director Lee Jan-yao (李然堯) said on Friday.
"Curriculum reform and how to orientate high school education will be the two major goals that the ministry wants to address at this conference," Lee said. "We hope [we can] gather suggestions to work out a way to balance high school education as both a general and an advanced educational process."
Lee said the ministry hoped certain controversies relating to high school reforms could move toward resolution at the conference.
In the last six months, a debate over whether to write new history texts with an emphasis on Taiwanese history rather than Chinese history has put back a new curriculum for senior high school from this year to 2006.
Some history professors opposed the new textbooks, which commence by teaching Taiwanese history. They objected to what they called the relegation of the Ming Dynasty and later Chinese dynasties to world history, saying it was an attempt to "desinicize" the curriculum and wipe out the history of the Republic of China.
A proposal to divide senior high school students into two groups -- science and liberal arts -- for the purpose of college entrance examinations has also aroused much discussion among experts.
"Hopefully a consensus can emerge from all of the different opinions, which can then result in benefits for both high school students and teachers," Minister of Education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) said.
Huang added that he was quite optimistic about the education budget this year as President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has made a pledge that it would increase by 10 percent annually.
Chen made the pledge during a meeting with students last Monday, a meeting which Huang also attended.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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