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 first of 10 new high-capacity trains purchased from South Korea’s Hyundai Rotem arrived at the Port of Taipei yesterday to meet the demands of an expanding metro network, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. The train completed a three-day, 1,200km voyage from the Port of Masan in South Korea, the company said. Costing NT$590 million (US$18.79 million) each, the new six-carriage trains feature a redesigned interior based on "human-centric" transportation concepts, TRTC said. The design utilizes continuous longitudinal seating to widen the aisles and optimize passenger flow, while also upgrading passenger information displays and driving control systems for a more comfortable
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
Taiwan's first indigenous defense submarine, the SS-711 Hai Kun (海鯤, or Narwhal), departed for its 13th sea trial at 7am today, marking its seventh submerged test, with delivery to the navy scheduled for July. The outing also marked its first sea deployment since President William Lai (賴清德) boarded the submarine for an inspection on March 19, drawing a crowd of military enthusiasts who gathered to show support. The submarine this morning departed port accompanied by CSBC Corp’s Endeavor Manta (奮進魔鬼魚號) uncrewed surface vessel and a navy M109 assault boat. Amid public interest in key milestones such as torpedo-launching operations and overnight submerged trials,
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS