Fri, Oct 22, 2004 page3

• Exam answers expected next week

  • By Ko Shu-ling / STAFF REPORTER
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  The Examination Yuan will decide next Thursday whether or not to remove the test of the nation's history and geography from January's entry-level national civil service examinations.

  The newly-appointed head of the examination committee, Lin Yu-ti (林玉体), pledged to handle the matter in accordance with the law, skillfully avoiding a possible confrontation with his colleagues opposed to his idea of scraping the test altogether.

  

  Taiwan Solidarity Union legislative candidates and others protest outside the Examination Yuan yesterday in support of Examination Committee head Lin Yu-ti's proposal to have only questions about Taiwan's history and geography on the history and geography portion of the entry-level civil service exams.

  PHOTO: WHO KNOWS? TAIPEI TIMES

  Examination Yuan President Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) told a press conference after the weekly closed-door Examination Yuan meeting yesterday that "He [Lin] promised to obey regulations regarding national examinations and resolutions reached by the Examination Yuan meeting."

  Lin was at the press conference, but looked at the floor and didn't say anything.

  Lin caused a stir on Monday when he said that he would only allow questions about Taiwan's history and geography to appear in next year's national history and geography exams.

  At present, only 5 percent of the questions in those tests in the entry-level exams for civil servants are about Taiwan.

  The Ministry of Examination has proposed two plans to the Examination Yuan. One is to abolish the history and geography test in the entry-level exam altogether. The other is to change the name of the test from "national history and geography" to "history and geography" and increase the percentage of questions that deal with Taiwan, as opposed to China.

  Arguing that Lin was ignoring the interests of the examinees and trying to influence the exams with his own political ideology, Examination Yuan member Hung Te-hsuan (洪德旋) threatened at yesterday's meeting to file a motion to have Lin removed from his post.

  Hung also berated Yao for his handling of the matter after Yao reportedly criticized Hung's political ideology following his threat to unseat Lin.

  Hung said that decided against filing the motion because of the pledge Lin made.

  "It's the beginning of a benign interaction," he said. "I'd like to write it off as a misunderstanding since he has promised to handle the matter in a legal manner."

  After the press conference, Lin told reporters that he would let the basic-level civil servant recruitment examination committee decide whether the history and geography of the Republic of China should cover just Taiwan or both Taiwan and China.

  "I personally think that 100 percent of the questions on `national history and geography' should be about Taiwan's history and geography," he said.

  "It's common sense that national history and geography is about the nation's history and geography. And since I have pledged to handle the matter in accordance with the related laws and regulations, I welcome anyone to report me to the authorities if I fail to do so," he said.
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