Representatives of the Parental Alliance on 12-year Education picketed Ministry of Education meetings in Taipei yesterday, as tensions between the ministry and the Taipei City Government continued to build.
Protesters lined the steps of National Taiwan University’s Shui-seng building, where the meeting was being held, attempting to keep school principals from entering the building. The principals have seats on the civil committee responsible for drafting Taipei’s high-school admissions plan.
The ministry rejected the plan last month, maintaining that it sought to illegally increase the importance of Comprehensive Assessment Program exam scores in the admissions process.
Photo: CNA
However, the city has refused to revise the plan, stating that the disputed details have precedents and do not require ministry approval.
The ministry’s calling of direct talks with civil committee officials drew strong criticism from the Taipei City Government, which accused it of interfering in its affairs.
“The ministry’s going over the heads of the educational administrative bodies of Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung was extremely inappropriate and disrespectful,” Taipei City Government spokesman Chang Chi-chiang (張其強) said, adding that the ministry’s actions “completely disregarded” laws guaranteeing local self-government.
“We have absolutely not interfered with local self-government,” ministry K-12 Education Administration director Wu Ching-shan (吳清山) said in response. “Today’s meeting was purely to communicate and exchange opinions.”
The Taipei Department of Education said it will hold internal discussions on the possibility of a new plan over the next two weeks in response to ministry demands. However, whether any substantial revisions has yet to be determined, the department said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching