Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華) yesterday said that the new curriculum guidelines should be followed in new textbooks set to be printed and would be used to draw up college entrance examination questions, despite widespread criticism.
The legislature’s Education and Culture Committee again invited the minister and other related public officials to report on the curriculum adjustments, which opposition legislators and civic groups have said were made dishonestly, and move students toward a Chinese-centered perspective.
Since the Taipei City Government recently said that its schools would continue using the unadjusted curriculum amid ongoing legal issues pertaining to the new one, five of the six special municipalities — barring the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-governed New Taipei City — have decided to stick to the previous curriculum.
KMT legislators Kung Wen-chi (孔文吉) and Chen Shu-hui (陳淑慧) expressed their worries over the “one country, two systems” problem concerning the textbooks and its possible effect on students, with Chen questioning the legitimacy of Taipei City Government’s calling on the ministry to avoid including contentious parts of the new curriculum in the nationwide exams.
“The new curriculum guidelines would be an executive regulation by which the schools should abide. With their promulgation, the old curriculum would cease to exist, and the exams would be based on the new curriculum,” Wu said.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lai Cheng-chang (賴振昌) challenged Wu’s statement, saying that the emergence of a new curriculum does not automatically invalidate an older one.
Democratic Progressive Party legislators Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) and Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said that as the license issued by the ministry for printing textbooks based on the old curriculum would not expire until 2018, there should be no legal prohibition against using textbooks based on the old curriculum.
Refusing to respond directly to the question of whether the license is legal, Wu repeated that the previous curriculum should be replaced.
Conventions have guided the process of the replacement of the old with the new curriculum, “and since there had been little controversy in the past, the invalidation of the old textbook license was never officially required. However, without it, we have an ambiguous situation now,” KMT Legislator Chen Pi-han (陳碧涵) said.
Challenged by Cheng on the adjustment-making procedures, which she accused of being illegitimate and flawed, the minister appeared piqued and urged the legislator to “point out the controversial parts to allow [all] to face [the contention] in a sensible way.”
However, when Cheng picked up his appeal for opening up and requested a new round of public hearings on the parts met with disputes, Wu said “the writing of the [new] textbooks has been finished” and the ministry will “showcase the new textbooks for public examination.”
The committee, after hours of negotiation, resolved the passage of two extemporaneous motions: that the ministry will respect each school’s right on textbook choosing, and that the College Entrance Examination Center will avoid controversial topics when designing the exams.
Taipei has once again made it to the top 100 in Oxford Economics’ Global Cities Index 2025 report, moving up five places from last year to 60. The annual index, which was published last month, evaluated 1,000 of the most populated metropolises based on five indices — economics, human capital, quality of life, environment and governance. New York maintained its top spot this year, placing first in the economics index thanks to the strength of its vibrant financial industry and economic stability. Taipei ranked 263rd in economics, 44th in human capital, 15th in quality of life, 284th for environment and 75th in governance,
The Sports Administration yesterday demanded an apology from the national table tennis association for barring 17-year-old Yeh Yi-tian (葉伊恬) from competing in the upcoming World Table Tennis (WTT) United States Smash tournament in Las Vegas this July. The sports agency said in a statement that the Chinese Taipei Table Tennis Association (CTTTA) must explain to the public why it withdrew Yeh from the WTT tournament in Las Vegas. The sports agency said it contacted the association to express its disapproval of the decision-making process after receiving a complaint from Yeh’s coach, Chuang
Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) tendered his resignation last night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by media. His resignation was immediately accepted by the Control Yuan. In a statement explaining why he had resigned, Lee apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon on May 20. The issue first came to light late last month, when TVBS News reported that Lee had instructed his driver to take the dog to the salon. The news channel broadcast photos that it said were taken by an unnamed whistle-blower, which purportedly showed the
A former officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) who witnessed the aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has warned that Taiwan could face a similar fate if China attempts to unify the country by force. Li Xiaoming (李曉明), who was deployed to Beijing as a junior officer during the crackdown, said Taiwanese people should study the massacre carefully, because it offers a glimpse of what Beijing is willing to do to suppress dissent. “What happened in Tiananmen Square could happen in Taiwan too,” Li told CNA in a May 22 interview, ahead of the massacre’s 36th anniversary. “If Taiwanese students or