Taipei City councilors yesterday urged the city government to screen municipal school textbooks and references and make clarifications after an additional history reference for junior high students described Taiwan as a special region of China.
Winners’ Exam Questions Book — Chinese History is reference material for a junior high history textbook published by Han Lin Publisher. Taiwan was included in a map of China’s territory and its special economic zones and was described as the “Taiwan special zone.”
Han Lin’s social science textbooks were selected as textbooks by the city government for municipal schools
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei city councilors blasted the publisher for misleading students with incorrect information and urged the city government to demand the publisher pull the references off the shelves.
BELITTLING
“The reference belittles Taiwan’s status and confused our youngsters with wrong information. We are concerned about the quality of school textbooks and references under the Education Department’s watch,” Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) said at Taipei City Council.
Taipei City Councilor Hung Chien-yi (洪健益) said the reference was published last year and could be found in major bookstores around the city.
Taipei City’s Education Department should demand the publisher remove the offending references from stores and offer a public apology while making corrections, Hung said.
“The publisher’s textbooks are official textbooks, I believe most junior high school students would also purchase the reference,” he said.
“What kind of distorted message does the map send to our youth?” he said.
The DPP councilors also criticized President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) for ignoring the country’s dignity as he sought to improve cross-strait relations.
They urged Ma to assert Taiwan’s sovereignty when he meets with Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) later this month or early next month.
CORRECTIONS
Han Lin director Yu Lin (余霖) said the company had already made corrections on the reference’s Web site, and would do the same with the published version.
The editor of the reference has already left the company, and Han Lin was looking into the source of the illustration, he said.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city government was only responsible for screening textbooks, and the content of the references was not its responsibility.
“I take full responsibility for the quality of textbooks, but references are not within our authorities,” Hau said.
Lee Chao-yu (李招譽), a division chief at the education department, said the department would also ask school teachers to clarify the issue in class.
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