Animal rights activists and legislators yesterday called on the Ministry of Education to teach students to respect animal rights.
Saying that textbooks for elementary and junior high students failed to teach respect for animals, the activists asked that the ministry amend its curriculum guidelines.
Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏), a representative of the Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan, told a press conference that a close examination of 159 elementary school textbooks and 23 junior high school textbooks showed that in most cases content taught students to “ignore, discriminate against, abuse and treat animals as lifeless items.”
For example, many textbooks require that students catch and raise insects in small boxes for observation while failing to require that teachers and students ensure the rights of the animals during and after the teaching activities, Chen said.
“A health and physical education textbook for fifth graders even carries a picture with a dog being forced to jump rope while another book used in arts classes for third graders contains a picture with a monkey whose head is covered by a bucket,” Chen said.
“Textbook content like this may be misleading and students could be tempted to imitate it when interacting with animals,” she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) urged the ministry to conduct a thorough review of textbook content before it spends funds promoting character building and moral education.
“There is no need for the ministry to spend about NT$900 million (US$27.4 million) promoting moral education,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said.
“[The ministry] simply has to promote environmental ethics because indifference to animals is the root of many problems,” Tien said.
In response, a Department of Elementary Education official surnamed Tsai said the ministry would invite animal rights advocates, publishers and the ministry’s textbook review panel to discuss the curriculum guidelines on Monday.
Tsai said that the ministry would also publicize a decennial review of the curriculum guidelines by the end of this year.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
PRO-CHINA SLOGANS: Two DPP members criticized police officers’ lack of action at the scene, saying that law enforcement authorities should investigate the incident Chinese tourists allegedly interrupted a protest in Taipei on Tuesday held by Hong Kongers, knocked down several flags and shouted: “Taiwan and Hong Kong belong to China.” Hong Kong democracy activists were holding a demonstration as Tuesday was China’s National Day. A video posted online by civic group Hong Kong Outlanders shows a couple, who are allegedly Chinese, during the demonstration. “Today is China’s National Day, and I won’t allow the displaying of these flags,” the male yells in the video before pushing some demonstrators and knocking down a few flagpoles. Radio Free Asia reported that some of the demonstrators
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
RSS