The ratio of classical Chinese-language articles included in the senior-high school curricula guidelines are to be decided by a Ministry of Education committee today.
The Association for Taiwan Literature on Thursday said that the ratio of classical Chinese lessons should be reduced to 30 percent and the number of classical Chinese articles reduced to 10 or 15.
However, Academia Sinica academic Tseng Yung-yih (曾永義) and others said that the 45 percent to 55 percent ratio should be maintained and the number of articles kept at 20.
Association for Taiwan Literature director Lin Chi-yang (林淇瀁), better known by his pen name, Xiang Yang (向陽), said in Thursday’s joint statement that the proportion should be reduced, while that of Taiwanese literature should be increased.
“Classic, modern or contemporary literature created in Taiwan is Taiwanese literature. These are valuable research tools that should be cherished,” he said.
Tseng and six other academics initiated an online petition to maintain the proportion.
“Language and cultural studies should be more expansive. If restrictions are imposed, student learning suffers,” said Tseng, who is also a National Taiwan University (NTU) Department of Chinese Literature honorary professor.
“Much of today’s spoken language is derived from ancient literature. It would not be good if people used only plain language without knowledge of the classics,” he said. “However, language is merely a form. More important is the content, philosophy, cultural heritage, ethics, morals and social spirit the form contains.”
Given that the draft was produced by the committee after two years’ discussion, it would be unreasonable if it is overturned by academics in other disciplines and online voting, NTU Chinese literature professor Cheng Yu-yu (鄭毓愉) said.
“This has nothing to do with classic and plain languages, nor with Chinese, Taiwanese or any kind of ideology,” she said. “From the perspective of language development, academics joining the petition are demanding that the ministry respect [curricula revision] procedures.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching