Students manipulated: lawmaker
By Chen Yen-ting and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) are manipulating students and are the source of discontent in schools nationwide in ongoing controversy surrounding the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Shu-hui (陳淑慧) said.
Chen was referring to students in more than 200 senior-high schools nationwide who have petitioned against the ministry’s decision to make changes that students said reflect a “China-centric” view.
The students also said the planned changes are illegal, referring to a Feb. 12 High Administrative Court ruling that the ministry must make its information more transparent and complete for public scrutiny.
Chen on Friday said the opposition parties and pro-Taiwanese independence groups are manipulating and misleading the students because students lack sufficient information about the current affairs of the educational system.
“Complaints on materials listing the Himalayas as the nation’s highest peak are false and we are offering an award of NT$5,000 to anyone who can find any mention [in the adjusted curricula] that the Himalayas are the Republic of China’s highest peak,” she added.
Chen also defended the ministry in its appeal against the Taipei High Administrative Court.
While the court ruled that the ministry should make public the members of the Committee of Curriculum Review, the ministry has released other information, such as meeting records, and has not conducted any so-called “black box” meetings, Chen said.
KMT Legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) suggested that the ministry abandon the proposed changes, adding that it should negotiate with students about the content of the curriculum guidelines.
The process of learning is supposed to go both ways, after all, she said, with students learning from teachers and the teachers benefiting from students’ questions.
The approaching summer vacations might cause concerned parents to take to the streets in protest, and the nation could ill afford any accidents, Yang said, adding that as the ministry has taken a step back and not insisted on the exclusive use of new textbooks, the issue is not as pressing as it might appear.
“We should all sit down and talk about the matter,” Yang said.
DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) rejected the accusations of misleading students.
The KMT government and Chen are attempting to escalate the issue to a confrontation of pro-localization and pro-unification camps, Cheng said.
The issue is a question of the confrontation between truth and falsity, and the confrontation of education and politics, she said.
However, without full disclosure, the case should be considered as lacking transparency, Cheng said, adding that the ministry was afraid of making the list of members public because whether the ministry “cheated” would be easy to discern once the list is disclosed.
Lack of transparency is the very definition of a “black-box” operation and infringes on procedural justice, Cheng said, adding that the ministry is withholding information to keep the public in the dark and to buy time until the changes go into effect in August, creating a de facto victory.
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