The Examination Yuan will decide soon whether or not to remove the test of the nation's history and geography from January's entry-level national examinations for civil servants.
According to Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文), the Ministry of Examination has proposed two plans to him. One is to abolish the history and geography test in the entry-level examination altogether.
The other is to change the name of the test from "national history and geography" to "history and geography" and increase the percentage of questions that deal with Taiwan, as opposed to China.
Currently, only 5 percent of the questions in the history and geography test in the entry-level exams for civil servants are about Taiwan.
The Examination Yuan is scheduled to discuss the proposals tomorrow or next Thursday during its weekly closed-door meeting. If it decides to scrap the test, over 40,000 examinees would take only three tests rather than four as part of their exams.
Yao said he personally thinks that 100 percent of such a test should concern Taiwan's history and geography. But he favors scrapping the history and geography test, because it would be too difficult to devise a formula for Taiwan or China-related questions that would be acceptable to all parties.
"No matter what the scope or name of the test would be, it wouldn't please everyone," he said.
Examination Yuan member Wu Tai-cheng (
"If the history and geography test continues, the percentage of questions for Taiwan and China history and geography should be specifically stipulated," he said. "If there isn't any history and geography test for January's examination, we must decide whether the same policy should be applied to other national examinations."
Wu revealed that when he met with Yao on Monday, Yao was in favor of repealing the civics test in addition to discontinuing the history and geography test in the entry-level national exams
Examination Yuan member Hung Te-hsuan (
"It's very unethical to twist things around like this and I feel ashamed for him [Yao]," he said. "What he does is like a city mayor who asks residents to move out of a burglar-infested city rather than cracking down on crime."
If Yao fails to appropriately tackle the matter, Hung said that he will make a stronger statement tomorrow.
Yao reportedly criticized Hung's political ideology after Hung proposed on Monday that Lin Yu-ti (
Lin, the newly-appointed head of the basic-level civil servant recruitment examination committee and also an Examination Yuan member, insisted on Monday that he would only allow materials concerning Taiwan's history and geography to appear in next year's national history and geography exams.
Hung argued that Lin was ignoring the interests of the examinees and trying to influence the exams with his own political ideology.
Meanwhile, in a bid to safeguard the interests of the test-takers who are planning to take the January exam, Minister of Examination Lin Chia-cheng (
In addition to the examination scheduled for January, Lin said that the ministry plans to review the possibility of applying the same policy to other national examinations in the future.
"Our preliminary thinking is to scrap the national history and geography test in all national exams, except for those recruiting diplomats, tourist guides, tourist group leaders, transportation and transportation technicians," he said.
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