Consideration of new high-school curriculum guidelines ground to a halt yesterday, after the Ministry of Education announced that it is to disband the current curriculum review committee pending the May 20 government changeover.
The review committee would only undertake a review of the conclusion of a history experts’ consultation committee and present a report to the National Academy for Educational Research for its consideration on social studies guidelines, Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟) said.
The ministry had originally intended to publicly announce new sets of curriculum guidelines between this month and May, he said.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
The ministry would revise directives governing the review committee to make it reorganize ahead of schedule in June, after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration assumes office, requiring new committee members to agree to the publication of their names.
Names of current members would not be publicized without their consent, he said, adding that there was no need to withdraw controversial “adjusted” high-school social studies curriculum guidelines, because the ministry had already allowed for schools to continue to use unaltered textbooks.
The ministry’s decision came following pressure from DPP legislators, who earlier in the day held a news conference with students’ rights advocates to demand that the adjusted guidelines be withdrawn and consideration of new guidelines stopped.
The adjusted guidelines sparked controversy with what critics described as the opaque “black box” method of their approval and an allegedly “China-centric” bias, sparking a student movement last year that occupied the ministry’s courtyard and leading to calls that consideration of new guidelines be halted pending institutional reforms.
DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) yesterday morning accused the ministry of seeking to present Tsai’s future administration with a fait accompli by forcing through new guidelines before it hands over power.
Cheng said that her motion to require the ministry to delay considerations on the new guidelines until a comprehensive review of the approval process was conducted had already been signed by 64 legislators — enough to gain passage when the new session opens on Feb. 19.
“The current administration is a caretaker administration and should respect public opinion instead of muddling through with its opaque ‘black box’ approval processes,” DPP Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said.
Civic activists called for the full publication of the meeting records of the curriculum review committee.
“Omissions and circles are everywhere in the minutes,” said Anti-Black Box Curriculum Guidelines Action Alliance spokesman Huang Yi-chung (黃益中), referring to the “circles” used in place of Chinese characters for the names of committee members who chose to remain anonymous.
Knowing committee members’ names is important for activists to be able to hold officials accountable for their remarks, as well as to verify their qualifications, National High School Teachers’ Union deputy secretary-general Huang Hui-chen (黃惠貞) said.
Incomplete meeting records also made it impossible for activists to verify how important decisions were made, she said, citing a controversial decision to increase the proportion of Mandarin language classes and make the study of selections from the Four Books of Confucian canon mandatory.
Activists also called for review committee budget details to be published.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
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