The Taiwan Bookstore (台灣書店), which for decades monopolized the provision of elementary and secondary school textbooks, will fade into history, Education Minister Huang Jung-tsun (黃榮村) said yesterday.
Declining business and the need to trim government organizations spelt the end for the company, which is more than 100 years old. Copyright for elementary and secondary book titles will be available to commercial publishers, Huang said.
"The Taiwan Bookstore's logo printed on the back cover of textbooks is a common memory for everyone who has been educated in Taiwan," he said.
PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"It accompanied our students over the years as they grew up. The books the company published were the spiritual food for students," he said.
"The Taiwan Bookstore played a critical role in educating Taiwan and accomplished its mission, the success of which I believe will go down in history," he added.
Founded in the Japanese era and taken over by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration in 1945, the Taiwan Bookstore was the only company responsible for printing and distributing the textbooks used in the public school system.
Every September, when the school year began, the Taiwan Bookstore would distribute 50 million copies of nearly 300 titles to 3,700 schools in every corner of the country, including Kinmen and Matsu, according to company records.
But since 1994, in response to a trend toward diversification in education, the ministry gradually opened up the writing and printing of school textbooks to private firms.
Consequently, the annual turnover of NT$10 billion was shared among other companies, reducing Taiwan Bookstore's dominance and phasing it out of the market.
At one time there were calls to privatize the company, but this was vetoed after the ministry evaluated its competitiveness, concluding that its prospects were not promising.
Around 30 bookstore employees attended the farewell news conference held at the old warehouse where textbooks used to be shipped out every September. One employee, surnamed Chen (
"It's a pity that the store had to just disappear like this," Chen said, who was a saleswoman with the company for 10 years.
According to Wu Cheng-muh (吳正牧), who served as president of the bookstore for seven-and-a-half years, most employees would be laid off with attractive pensions, while about 20 appropriately qualified staff would be transferred to the ministry. All of the land, factories, warehouses and other buildings owned by the bookstore would be transferred to the National Property Bureau (國有財產局).
Wu recalled the days that workers used to stand on ladders, hurrying to arrange textbooks in stacks up to two-stories high, and sometimes being struck by falling piles of books.
"Every summer I had to visit several workers injured by books because of their hard work in the warehouse," Wu said, his eyes glistening.
"The bookstore made a great contribution to Taiwan's educa-tion," he said.
"The textbooks we published were not fancy but they were practical and informative," he said.
"We were proud of every employee that had the attitude that textbooks for schools around the country had to be shipped on time," he said.
"I believe the Taiwan Bookstore will not be a thing of the past but live on in everybody's minds. Hopefully the Taiwan Bookstore sign will be hung up again," he said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as