Students from 120 high schools and vocational high schools nationwide had as of press time last night signed a petition to protest the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to curriculum guidelines.
The ministry faces opposition from teachers and politicians, who claim the planned adjustments would force high-school students to use “China-centric” texts that gloss over past atrocities of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) during the White Terror era, as well as suppressing information on efforts of Taiwanese who fought for democracy.
Students from National Taiwan Normal University’s (NTNU) Department of History supported the petitions, adding that it is necessary to support the “simple and sublime ideals” of high-school students in light of what they called “the forced passage of illegal curriculum changes.”
Screenshot by Hung Ting-hung, Taipei Times
Education has become a means by which the state influences students, but the passage of the “black-box” curriculum adjustment has no legal basis, as it has strong ideological suppositions, the students said.
Textbooks written with the proposed changes in mind would not offer high-school students a complete picture of history nor allow them to “decide for themselves what their historical consciousness should be,” the students said.
If textbooks lack a legal basis during procedural determination and have content that is lacking, how can ministry officials live with their consciences, the students said.
The students quoted German historian Max Weber’s work Science as Vocation, in which he wrote: “Without this passion, this conviction that thousands of years must pass before you enter into life and thousands more wait in silence, according to whether you succeed in this conjecture without all this, one has no vocation for science and should do something else.”
The students said the ministry should heed calls for textbooks to adhere to historical truths.
Taichung City Bureau of Education Director-General Yen Ching-hsiang (顏慶祥) said the goal of education in many countries was to allow students to develop the ability to think independently as well as foster democratic values.
Yen said he was happy to see that the ministry’s “erroneous” policy has not harmed democratic values in the hearts of students and has instead motivated them to participate in an effort to change society.
There are 503 high schools across the nation — 155 national high schools, 99 municipal high schools, 38 county high schools and 211 private high schools, according to the ministry.
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