Only parents with children in school should be allowed to represent “parents” on an upcoming national curriculum review committee, a parent advocate said yesterday.
“For such an important set of meetings, only parents or guardians whose children are still in school should be invited, because they are the truly interested parties,” National Association of Students’ Parents chairman Chen Tieh-hu (陳鐵虎) said, adding that the views of parents whose children have already graduated from a school might differ from those whose children are still attending.
He cited voting over high-school admissions policies at a meeting of the Taipei, New Taipei City and Keelung combined school district earlier this month, which saw some parent representatives vote in support of maintaining a controversial method of using school preferences to assign admission points.
“The majority of parents were unwilling, because the system limits our ability to choose schools freely, but parents of children who already graduated did not think it was a big deal,” he said.
A national curriculum review committee is to discuss a unitary set of 10-year guidelines for elementary, middle and high schools.
In related news, the Ministry of Education’s selection process for student representatives has also sparked controversy, with a student congress, which was convened by the ministry, earlier this week voting to delay nominating student representatives due to alleged procedural flaws.
The ministry’s deadline for nominating parent representatives passed yesterday, with Chen saying that his association had nominated 10 candidates
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
INTIMIDATION: In addition to the likely military drills near Taiwan, China has also been waging a disinformation campaign to sow division between Taiwan and the US Beijing is poised to encircle Taiwan proper in military exercise “Joint Sword-2024C,” starting today or tomorrow, as President William Lai (賴清德) returns from his visit to diplomatic allies in the Pacific, a national security official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said that multiple intelligence sources showed that China is “highly likely” to launch new drills around Taiwan. Although the drills’ scale is unknown, there is little doubt that they are part of the military activities China initiated before Lai’s departure, they said. Beijing at the same time is conducting information warfare by fanning skepticism of the US and
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Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
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