Mon, Mar 22, 2021 page6

• Creating a culture on the basis of education

  • By Li Chuan-hsin 李川信
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  This year marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Taiwan Cultural Association.

  This means that, after 20 years of hard work to rectify the nation’s name, write a new constitution and win UN membership, the only way for Taiwan’s status to become normalized — which would fulfill a century-long dream of Taiwanese — is through the construction of a Taiwanese culture and a Taiwan-centered education.

  History is the source of culture, and culture is life. By valuing history, people can explore the changes that have occurred in the place where they live.

  Taiwan-centered education is significant because it recognizes the languages and cultures of all of Taiwan’s ethnic groups, and the nation’s history.

  It then uses this recognition to construct a collective historical memory, which can shape a people that values human care and concern, and eventually a nation that identifies with its land and a normalized Taiwanese state.

  In terms of a Taiwan-centered education, opinion polls over the past few years have shown that more than 80 percent of Taiwanese are in favor of more Taiwanese history and geography in school curricula at all levels, strengthening mother-tongue education, and cultivating talent to study Taiwanese literature and history.

  It is clear that support for a Taiwan-centered education has entered the mainstream. The Ministry of Education has long recognized the urgency of addressing this change and cultivating Taiwanese awareness.

  When former minister of education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) was appointed in 2004, he immediately proposed that cultivating a modern citizenry, establishing a Taiwanese identity, developing an international outlook, and strengthening social care and concern should be the ministry’s policy focus.

  Tu was the first education minister to propose a Taiwan-centered education, and four years after its implementation, the effects became clear as it laid the groundwork for the Sunflower movement and support for Taiwanese independence among the younger generation.

  In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party returned to power, and Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) was appointed education minister. Pan proposed an amendment to the 2019 curricula, and Taiwanese literature and history has since been expanded in the high-school curriculum at the cost of classical Chinese.

  Following the passage of the Development of National Languages Act (國家語言發展法), the ministry has said that local language education would be fully implemented in the 12-year education system from next year.

  Meanwhile, the Ministry of Culture has launched the Taiwan Cultural Memory Bank to make the history of Taiwanese art accessible.

  The government should work with civic society to construct a far-reaching and complete discourse to further stimulate the development of Taiwan’s culture and education.

  It is the lack of a Taiwan-centered education that is the source of the differences in national identification. Educational content has a deep effect on identity, and textbooks are the soul of education.

  Students are most interested in textbooks that are related to their own lives, and so a Taiwan-centered education must begin in school.

  A century after the founding of the Taiwan Cultural Association, the construction of a Taiwanese culture and a Taiwan-centered education has become an unavoidable core value that steadies the will and confidence of all Taiwanese.

  It is on this foundation that Taiwan will move toward normal nationhood.

  Li Chuan-hsin is the president of the Northern Taiwan Society.

  Translated by Perry Svensson
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