Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials are dissatisfied with the Ministry of Education’s handling of the controversy over adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines and have instructed a party-affiliated think tank to provide assistance, sources within the KMT said yesterday.
The ministry’s planned adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines have sparked waves of protests by students and groups over what opponents call a “China-centric” perspective and a “black-box” approval process.
Sources within the KMT said party officials and legislators last month held a meeting with Executive Yuan officials on how to respond to the controversy.
The ministry should be more proactive in “putting out the fire,” the sources said, adding that the think tank was asked to perform damage control.
A KMT legislator who declined to be named said think tank member Chu Yun-peng (朱雲鵬) would hold conferences on the issue over the summer and meet with students in an attempt to gain positive media coverage.
Chu, who convenes the think tank’s economic and technological affairs division, served on a curriculum approval committee.
The sources said that the party has also instructed the think tank to provide more convincing talking points in favor of the proposed changes and that additional recommendations and assistance from the Executive Yuan were a possibility depending on how the situation develops.
A person present at the meeting at the Executive Yuan said party officials and legislators expressed frustration at the ministry’s June 12 cancelation of three planned symposiums on the proposed changes after Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) was temporarily blocked from leaving the first symposium by students.
Legislators and officials only learned of the ministry’s decision after “seeing the news release,” despite having urged the ministry to hold the events, the person said.
Sources within the KMT said party officials were dissatisfied with ministry officials’ “passive” and “muddled” response to the controversy, which has been characterized by “canned” explanations and turning a deaf ear to the views of party lawmakers.
As the controversy has been simmering for more than a month, KMT lawmakers are concerned that it will continue to expand and possibly become “a second Sunflower movement,” influencing next year’s presidential and legislative elections, concerns heightened by the fact that the beginning of the summer vacation has provided more “space” for student protest activities, the sources said.
Sources said that some KMT legislators advocate withdrawing the new guidelines, but there are concerns that doing so now would only “make a bigger mess,” because the guidelines have already been adopted by many schools.
Party officials hope the ministry can hone its message and come up with a more “open” and “democratic” means of resolving the controversy, the sources said.
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