Amid escalating protests against high-school curriculum guidelines scheduled to take effect next month, the Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday sought to clarify several points central to students’ concerns, adding that the much-maligned vetting procedure for the adjustments was carried out in accordance with precedent.
Yang Kuo-yang (楊國揚), director of the National Academy for Educational Research Development’s Center for Textbooks, rejected allegations that the guidelines in dispute stipulate an increased emphasis on Chinese history and geography, saying that there have been no changes to the allocation of classroom time.
The eight credits stipulated for Taiwanese history, Chinese history and world history, which are taught over two years, are in a 2-3-3 ratio, which remains unchanged from previous guidelines, he said.
On geography, another major source of contention, he said that the classroom time recommended for the study of Taiwanese and Chinese geography is about the same, between 12 and 15 hours and 12 hours respectively, adding that teachers are at liberty to make adjustments according to students’ needs.
As for allegations that academics on a “small curriculum adjustment” committee were selected in an opaque manner, Yang said the vetting procedure was the same employed for previous curriculum guideline adjustments.
Yang said it was understandable that students have protested over their doubts about the fairness of the vetting process, because there is no standard operating procedure to regulate the selection of academics to decide on the adjustments, but denied that there was anything inappropriate about the decisionmaking process.
He said that much of the controversy is due to the phrasing of historic incidents, such as the Japanese colonial era, whose political correctness some have questioned. Those opposed to the term recommend that the phrase “Japanese rule” be adopted instead.
Textbook publishers submitted material containing both terms to the ministry for review and both versions were approved, Yang said, adding that the agency never intended to dictate which term must be used.
He said that the guidelines were not overriding rules that publishers were required to follow and that the ministry would not require that every detail be written down in the exact same fashion as stipulated in the guidelines.
“Take the 228 Incident, for example. Some publishers might be inclined to use a Taiwanese point of view, while some might lean toward the perspective of people arriving in Taiwan following Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) defeat in the Chinese Civil War. We will accept both versions,” he said.
“We welcome the public to examine the textbooks published under the new curriculum guidelines,” Yang said.
Meanwhile, K-12 Education Administration official Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) said that contrary to popular belief, the importance of the 228 Incident was increased, not reduced, in the guidelines.
She said that the current guidelines list the incident as a footnote, but the new edition stipulates that it should be made a “key point.”
She also said that the term “White Terror” was removed from the guidelines for civic education and replaced with a more general phrase as a result of a section about the 228 Incident being edited out of the curriculum.
She said that discriminatory terms for foreign spouses and workers would be deleted and changed to the more appropriate phrase “new residents” in accordance to a 12-year educational policy set to take effect next year.
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