Former minister of education Huang Jong-tsun (黃榮村) yesterday told lawmakers that he would support any effort to move the nation toward a sounder constitutional system, including abolishing the Examination Yuan, if he were to be confirmed as its head.
Huang, who was nominated by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to be Examination Yuan president, made the remark as the Legislative Yuan in Taipei reviewed his nomination.
Abolishing the Examination Yuan and the Control Yuan has been advocated by many people for a long time, and he would support any effort aimed at boosting the government’s efficacy and improving the nation’s constitutional system, Huang said in his speech.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
If the decision was made to abolish the Executive Yuan, he would not seek to cling to his post, but would draft measure to phase it out, while ensuring that its functions of designing civil service entrance tests and evaluating civil servants’ performances be continued, he said.
Traditional paper tests alone cannot meet the needs of society and the government for capable civil servants, so he would take into account the challenges civil servants would encounter on their jobs, their mobility between different fields and whether they have an international perspective, he said.
He would evaluate the need for a two-step entrance test process for civil engineers and other professions concerned with public safety by requiring them to obtain a general license before passing specialized tests administered by professional associations, he said.
The single-track testing system for civil servants, researchers and teachers is no longer “appropriate,” he said, adding that the rules should be amended to separate the testing of the three professions, which would improve the nation’s competitiveness.
During a question-and-answer session with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇), Huang was asked whether he would support the inclusion of Taiwanese history as a subject in civil service tests.
Civil servants handling Hakka or Aboriginal affairs are required to take tests on Hakka and Aboriginal history, but those testing for positions in other agencies are not required to be tested on the nation’s history, Wang said.
If civil servants are familiar with the nation’s history, it would significantly benefit their jobs and the nation’s development, he said.
A civil servant concerned with building roads or dams could not do their job well if they did not know the history of a locality, he said.
Huang said that he supports including tests on the nation’s history if the responsibilities associated with a position would benefit from such a move, adding that he would look into the matter.
Taiwanese history could also be included as part of the training program for newly hired civil servants before they are assigned their first jobs, he added.
A total lunar eclipse coinciding with the Lantern Festival on March 3 would be Taiwan’s most notable celestial event this year, the Taipei Astronomical Museum said, urging skywatchers not to miss it. There would be four eclipses worldwide this year — two solar eclipses and two lunar eclipses — the museum’s Web site says. Taiwan would be able to observe one of the lunar eclipses in its entirety on March 3. The eclipse would be visible as the moon rises at 5:50pm, already partly shaded by the Earth’s shadow, the museum said. It would peak at about 7:30pm, when the moon would
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
Two siblings in their 70s were injured yesterday when they opened a parcel and it exploded, police in Yilan said, adding the brother and sister were both in stable condition. The two siblings, surnamed Hung (洪), had received the parcel two days earlier but did not open it until yesterday, the first day of the Lunar New Year holiday in Taiwan, police said. Chen Chin-cheng (陳金城), head of the Yilan County Government Police Bureau, said the package bore no postmark or names and was labeled only with the siblings’ address. Citing the findings of a
RSS