Taiwanese students generally have low level of trust in the government, political parties and the media, according to an international study released yesterday.
The Ministry of Education and the National Science Council publicized the nation’s results from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009 (ICCS 2009), which showed that Taiwanese in their second year of junior-high generally did not have much trust in the government, political parties or the media.
The ministry said this lack of trust could be because the students had strong critical thinking ability or had high expectations of these institutions.
The phenomenon might also be appearing because the nation’s democracy has not fully developed yet, the ministry said.
A total of 5,167 students in the second year of junior-high from 150 randomly selected schools took part in the study in May last year, which was designed to assess the citizenship education levels of students worldwide.
The ministry said this was the first international social evaluation program the nation had joined.
The ICCS 2009 report showed that 38 countries and areas took part in the study.
Taiwan participated under the name “Chinese Taipei,” the ICCS 2009 brochure said.
The study found no differences between the “political efficacy” of Taiwanese students and students of other nations.
The term “political efficacy” refers to citizens’ trust in government and their own belief that they understand politics, the ministry said, adding that up to 82 percent of Taiwanese respondents said they would vote.
The Taiwanese students in the study also appeared to lead other nations in terms of their support for gender equality, the ministry said.
Although the students respondents appeared quite “cognizant” of their citizenship, they might still need to take more action to perform their civic duties.
The study showed that the majority of the students participating in the study — 65 percent — had never participated in civic activities outside of school.
This showed that there was still room for improvement in Taiwan’s civic education, the ministry said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods