High school students will be required to enroll in new sex education courses starting next year, if a new "civil society" curriculum plan is approved by the Ministry of Education, a ministry official said yesterday.
"Young people need to foster correct attitudes regarding interaction with the opposite sex," said Chen Yi-hsing (陳益興), the ministry's secondary education director.
Calling the proposed curriculum "courses on gender relations," Chen said such issues as romance, break-ups and pregnancy -- increasingly common themes in adolescents' lives -- would be covered by the classes.
"When should students think about having a boyfriend or girlfriend? How should they prevent or deal with unwanted pregnancies? How should they view their own sexual development?" Chen said.
"These are the kinds of questions that would be addressed," Chen said.
Although the last civil society curriculum plan, implemented since last year, contains sex education classes, gender relations courses are receiving more attention in the upcoming plan because of "legal considerations" and the need to foster "healthier relations" between the sexes, Chen said.
By teaching high school students to "respect" the opposite sex, he said, human rights legislation, such as the Gender Equality Law (性別平等法), would be better served.
Last month, the ministry cited that law in submitting a bill to the legislature that, if passed, would grant pregnant teens maternity leave from school. Taiwan has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Asia.
"Gender relations classes would help students avoid pregnancy, or at least know how to deal with it," Chen said.
"We're not encouraging them to engage in sexual activity or get pregnant," he added. "We're arming students with the knowledge they need to successfully interact with the opposite sex."
The plan is "a work in progress" until the ministry's Curriculum Development Committee finalizes it before the next academic year, Chen said.
Pan-blue lawmakers, however, slammed the ministry yesterday for seeking to designate "love classes" as "requisite curriculum."
"Schools should not force students to take such classes; they could push students to taste the forbidden fruit," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kuo Su-chun (
Teachers lack the expertise and experience to effectively teach such material, she added, while KMT Legislator Lu Shiow-yen (
Responding to criticism yesterday, Chen said gender relations courses are "merely a small part of the proposed plan."
The controversial classes are under the "civil society" plan because they deal with personal development and becoming a good citizen, he added.
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
CPBL players, cheerleaders and officials pose at a news conference in Taipei yesterday announcing the upcoming All-Star Game. This year’s CPBL All-Star Weekend is to be held at the Taipei Dome on July 19 and 20.
The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s decision that ruled in favor of former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) regarding the legitimacy of her doctoral degree. The issue surrounding Tsai’s academic credentials was raised by former political talk show host Dennis Peng (彭文正) in a Facebook post in June 2019, when Tsai was seeking re-election. Peng has repeatedly accused Tsai of never completing her doctoral dissertation to get a doctoral degree in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984. He subsequently filed a declaratory action charging that
The Hualien Branch of the High Court today sentenced the main suspect in the 2021 fatal derailment of the Taroko Express to 12 years and six months in jail in the second trial of the suspect for his role in Taiwan’s deadliest train crash. Lee Yi-hsiang (李義祥), the driver of a crane truck that fell onto the tracks and which the the Taiwan Railways Administration's (TRA) train crashed into in an accident that killed 49 people and injured 200, was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in the first trial by the Hualien District Court in 2022. Hoa Van Hao, a