The newly-appointed chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs and minister of education yesterday declared their visions for the nation's development from the perspectives of arts and education, with each saying that he will be devoted to transforming the people of Taiwan into qualified "world citizens" while building a new, unified national identity.
Chairman of the Council for Cultural Affairs Chen Chi-nan (
Chen Chi-nan said that the Council for Cultural Affairs will work to deliver results on President Chen's promise that the government will push "the establishment of a civil society and the rebuilding of unity through a sense of shared destiny."
Chen said that the passions aroused by the presidential election have hurt the emotions nationally and tensed the relationship between different ethnic groups in Taiwan.
"It seems that only arts and culture can deal with the thorny problem and heal the hurting hearts of the people of Taiwan," Chen Chi-nan said.
"I expect the Council for Cultural Affairs to play an important role as a platform for reconciling the conflict and misunderstanding between ethnic groups and create more discussion space for them," Chen Chi-nan added.
Creating a network for preserving cultural assets, implementing policies for holistic community building and promoting the concept of civil esthetics and local theater will be the key policies that Chen Chi-nan will push.
"Future cultural polices will not merely limit the problems of how to distribute funds to artistic groups, but will center on how to allocate resources in a more balanced way," Chen Chi-nan said.
"It is very important to integrate the existing resources among different governmental departments and ministries and use the resources more effectively, which I think was a major goal that Premier Yu Shyi-kun wanted the new Cabinet to achieve," he said.
Meanwhile, incoming Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (
Tu also encouraged the ministry's officials to deal with educational issues in an "objective, rational and analytical" way.
"Everyone has his or her opinion about education, and to respect everyone's opinion is the spirit of education, but one should also be able to make sound judgments," Tu said.
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