Students yesterday urged Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) to answer questions about controversial curriculum guidelines for textbooks “sincerely,” or risk seeing students take to the streets in protest.
The first of four planned meetings on campuses for students to communicate with the ministry over the proposed guidelines — to be implemented in August — was held at National Taichung First Senior High School on Tuesday night.
It ended in chaos at about 8pm at an entrance to the campus, where several dozen students stood hand-in-hand to block the car carrying Wu from leaving after the two-hour meeting.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
The protesters demanded that Wu apologize to students for being evasive in answering questions they raised at the meeting.
“Students are not rioters,” Apple Tree Commune Club spokesperson Liao Chung-lun (廖崇倫) said in a statement released yesterday.
To disrupt what they called the “unequal power relationship” between the ministry and the students, “the only weapon we have is our bodies,” the high-school group’s spokesperson said.
The ministry repeatedly said that Wu was there to listen to what the students have to say and to communicate with them about the guidelines in a sincere manner, Liao said.
“However, he did not answer our questions in good faith,” Liao added.
Liao said the move to block Wu’s vehicle from leaving was to let the minister know that his replies skirted around the students’ questions rather than facing them squarely.
Club member Chen Chien-hsun (陳建勳) said that some of the students were hit by Wu’s bodyguards — who allegedly elbowed them in the melee — adding that the students condemned the use of violence by Wu’s entourage.
The second and third meetings are to be held at National Tainan Senior High School and the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei on Saturday, while the fourth is planned for National Hsinchu Senior High School on Sunday.
“We are formulating plans — for example, a rally — to have the minister face up to his political responsibility if he continues to be evasive in the next three meetings,” Chen said.
Wu said yesterday that his dialogue with students should be conducted in a peaceful and rational manner, adding: “Campuses should be free from political interference.”
Action Coalition of Civics Teachers spokesperson Huang Yi-chung (黃益中) said Wu’s implication that the students were politically motivated in their opposition to the guidelines was wide of the mark.
It was the curriculum adjustment task force led by Wang Hsiao-po (王曉波), a professor at Shih Hsin University known for his pro-unification stance, who injected politics into the curriculum guidelines, said Huang, who is a teacher at Taipei Municipal Dazhi High School.
“How could Wu stigmatize students and teachers?” Huang asked. “Is being the minister of education such a prize that he has to create rumors to keep his job?”
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS