New Taipei City Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) and Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) separately yesterday urged the Ministry of Education to make the changes to the new 12-year national compulsory education system as junior-high school students who attended the first Comprehensive Assessment Program were bogged down with anxiety after they submitted their school preference forms.
Both mayors are Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members.
“This assessment program has put many parents and students through hell. It is supposed to reduce academic pressure on young students and alleviate parents’ worries, yet it ended up galvanizing far too many grievances and complaints,” Chu said during a meeting of the New Taipei City Council.
“More problems may ensue after the admission results are announced on June 20,” Chu said, calling on academics involved in the policymaking for the new system to conduct a thorough review.
Chu made the remarks hours before the deadline for submitting the school preference forms, which had been the main cause of unease among program participants and their parents over the past few weeks.
The most controversial part of the new education system, which is set to take effect in August, is the ranking system schools must adhere to when the numbers of students expecting to study in the schools exceed their enrollment quotas.
Under the ranking system, students will be evaluated based on their learning performance in different fields, their scores on the Comprehensive Assessment Program and how high the schools are placed on their lists of school choices.
Each section is worth 30 points and the students’ chance of admission are directly linked to the total score they receive.
For example, if students meet the enrollment qualifications for their first choice of school, they will get 30 points on the “school preference section;” if they are only eligible to enter their second choice, they will lose one point on that section, which could see students with high entrance exam scores ending up in a lower-ranked school.
Meanwhile, Hu said if an educational reform only causes pain, changes must be made.
“What kind of reform only brings more pains to young students and their parents?” Hu asked.
Hu added that the ministry had ignored his repeated calls for it to announce the number of students in each grade level to make the task of filling school preference forms easier.
Greater Taichung City Councilor Hsieh Chih-chung (謝志忠), whose son also attended this year’s Comprehensive Assessment Program, said the ranking system was so complex that he and his son had no choice but to ask for the advice of deities.
Hsieh also cited eight major problems of the entrance exam listed by the Alliance on Obligatory Education, including lack of information, puzzling rating system, insufficient time allowed for students to fill their school preference cards and a poorly designed grading system that categorizes test results into only three different levels.
The manufacture of the remaining 28 M1A2T Abrams tanks Taiwan purchased from the US has recently been completed, and they are expected to be delivered within the next one to two months, a source said yesterday. The Ministry of National Defense is arranging cargo ships to transport the tanks to Taiwan as soon as possible, said the source, who is familiar with the matter. The estimated arrival time ranges from late this month to early next month, the source said. The 28 Abrams tanks make up the third and final batch of a total of 108 tanks, valued at about NT$40.5 billion
Two Taiwanese prosecutors were questioned by Chinese security personnel at their hotel during a trip to China’s Henan Province this month, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday. The officers had personal information on the prosecutors, including “when they were assigned to their posts, their work locations and job titles,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. On top of asking about their agencies and positions, the officers also questioned the prosecutors about the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement, a pact that serves as the framework for Taiwan-China cooperation on combating crime and providing judicial assistance, Liang
A group from the Taiwanese Designers in Australia association yesterday represented Taiwan at the Midsumma Pride March in Melbourne. The march, held in the St. Kilda suburb, is the city’s largest LGBTQIA+ parade and the flagship event of the annual Midsumma Festival. It attracted more than 45,000 spectators who supported the 400 groups and 10,000 marchers that participated this year, the association said. Taiwanese Designers said they organized a team to march for Taiwan this year, joining politicians, government agencies, professionals and community organizations in showing support for LGBTQIA+ people and diverse communities. As the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex
MOTIVES QUESTIONED The PLA considers Xi’s policies toward Taiwan to be driven by personal considerations rather than military assessment, the Epoch Times reports Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) latest purge of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) leadership might have been prompted by the military’s opposition to plans of invading Taiwan, the Epoch Times said. The Chinese military opposes waging war against Taiwan by a large consensus, putting it at odds with Xi’s vision, the Falun Gong-affiliated daily said in a report on Thursday, citing anonymous sources with insight into the PLA’s inner workings. The opposition is not the opinion of a few generals, but a widely shared view among the PLA cadre, the Epoch Times cited them as saying. “Chinese forces know full well that
RSS