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New education minister could spell reform: analysts

"The ethnic groups and lifestyles in Taiwan are diverse and cultures in Taiwan are thus diverse, too." National Palace Museum Director Tu Cheng-sheng FILE PHOTO: LIBERTY TIMES

As National Palace Museum Director Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) was given the nod to take the post of Minister of Education, many critics said the appointment is an indication that history textbooks in secondary schools will finally be revamped to portray a more balanced view of China's role in Taiwan's history.

After obtaining a bachelor's degree and a master's degree at National Taiwan University, Tu studied at the London School of Economics, but he later gave it up after deciding to probe into Chinese and Taiwanese history. As soon as he came back to Taiwan in 1980, Tu worked as a researcher at the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica and served as the Institute's director from 1995 to 2000.

With a specialty in ancient China, Chinese social history and medical history, Tu, 60, is also noted for his activism and dedication to history education.

After becoming the director of the National Palace Museum in 2000, Tu focused on making the museum more accessible to domestic and international communities. Last January, Tu organized a special exhibition "the Emergence of Taiwan on the World Scene in the 17th Century," which attracted a large number of visitors.

"The ethnic groups and lifestyles in Taiwan are diverse and cultures in Taiwan are thus diverse, too."

National Palace Museum Director Tu Cheng-sheng

Tu was also devoted to establishing a branch of the National Palace Museum in Chiayi County and helped arrange the museum's collection for display in Germany when first lady Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍) visited Europe last July.

Except his performance as a curator, Tu is known for serving as the committee convener for compiling the junior-high school textbook series named Knowing Taiwan (認識台灣) in 1996, which focused on teaching young students about the different historic, geographic and social aspects of Taiwan.

However, some pro-unification academics and legislators said the textbooks were an attempt to "sever the nation," and have vehemently opposed the use of the textbooks, forcing them to be integrated into other courses as supplementary reading matter.

But the controversy over Knowing Taiwan was later considered to be part of the first trend of promoting the Taiwanese identity under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).

Although he is an authority on Chinese history, Tu has studied Taiwanese history and has proposed a theory called "the Concentric Circle," which stresses teaching young students about Taiwanese history first, and then learn about Chinese history and modern history.

"The ethnic groups and lifestyles in Taiwan are diverse and cultures in Taiwan are thus diverse, too," Tu said in a speech on March 21. "We are supposed to look at our history on a basis that Taiwan is an principal part and establish a historical perspective with diverse angles and concerns."

"I encourage students to know history from the things closest and most familiar to them and explore it more and more broadly," Tu said.

The Ministry of Education planned to apply Tu's "theory of concentric circle" as the new guidelines for high school history textbooks last October but it was again boycotted by People First Party (PFP) Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) and other pan-blue camp lawmakers. Tu and Lee had disputes over the issue and the plan has been on ice since then.

Many critics commented that Tu is a learned and hardworking researcher but also quite firm on what he thinks right.

Cheng Pang-chen (鄭邦鎮), director of the Chinese Literature department at Providence University, who has talked with Tu at several academic conferences, said that Tu was an ideal candidate for the post.

"I think Tu is a scholar who handles public speaking very well and has a very broad historical mind. I have high expectations for his performance," Cheng said.
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