INTERVIEW: ‘Taiwan-centric’ studies a must: Tainan student group

As high-school students nationwide rally against the Ministry of Education’s adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, members of the Nanman club at National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School, which is spearheading protests at the school, expounded on the club’s views in a recent interview with staff reporter Jennifer Huang of the Chinese-language ‘Liberty Times’ (the sister newspaper of the ‘Taipei Times’)

Tue, Jun 16, 2015 - Page 3

Liberty Times: What is your understanding of the ministry’s curriculum adjustments? Why are you protesting against the adjustments?

Students: Last year, we conducted a survey of all the textbooks ever used in Taiwan. The textbooks used in the Japanese colonial era put great emphasis on familiarizing students with Taiwan and students even had to climb Yushan as a graduation requirement.

However, the textbooks used since the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 have sought to make students memorize a slew of facts about Chinese history and geography, making students learn where the Yangtze River and Yellow River flow in China, without knowing where the Tsengwen River traverses Taiwan.

That “China-centrism” in the curriculum remains even to this day — when almost all students have grown up in Taiwan — with only a small proportion of the curriculum dedicated to Taiwanese studies, let alone giving the attention due to Aborigines and immigrants [to Taiwan].

A Taiwan-centric curriculum should be put at the center of educational reform, but the ministry is backtracking on reform by reinstating an anachronistic Chinese nationalist agenda at the expense of pluralism, which goes against the fundamental principles of education and which has provoked students’ major dissatisfaction.

LT: Is the National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School pressured to select certain textbooks?

Students: A high-school principal said that all students need to do is study and not to be involved in the anti-curriculum protests, which is typical of those educators with a conservative mindset.

Our club members read out a declaration in opposition to the adjusted curriculum at a student council meeting, officially announcing that students at our school have joined forces with the anti-curriculum protesters.

When asked to clarify its position on the curriculum issue, our school said that it “did not understand the issue” and “refused to be asked to reveal its stance” on the issue.

How could teachers and school administrators hedge at the issues of curriculum and textbook selection, which are a major part of high-school education?

Is it not educators’ duty to expound on their educational philosophy to students? Otherwise, how can students accept what they are taught?

LT: How do you plan to protect your right to education in the future?

Students: A teacher at a junior-high school in Tainan told a group of third-year students after a final examination last year: “When you were struggling to write down correct answers for better grades, there were people organizing sit-in protests against the “black-box” curriculum in front of the Ministry of Education headquarters. They are fighting for your right to education and I hope you can find out the problems and answers [of the curriculum] by yourselves.”

Some of those students entered our school this year and joined the opposition against the adjusted curriculum after studying the issues.

In addition to starting an online campaign, we plan to set up more stalls on campus for students to write down their opinions and to make a video voicing those opinions as an alternative form of signature collection to petition against the curriculum adjustments.

Hong Kong students initiated hunger strikes against China’s “brainwashing” national education and halted its implementation in 2012. It might not be necessary for Taiwanese students to follow in Hong Kongers’ footsteps, but it is clear that students’ reflection on high-school education has been growing.

Translated by staff writer Chen Wei-han