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NORMAL PROCEDURES︰The party’s
chairman said that decisions on textbook contents should be made within the
Ministry of Education’s standard way of doing things By
Rich Chang / Staff reporter Sat,
Feb 08, 2014 - Page 3 A
handful of leftist and radical pro-unification types have been directing the
Ministry of Education’s plan to revise the national high-school curriculum,
the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) said yesterday. TSU
Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) made the remarks amid the
ongoing controversy sparked by the ministry’s plan
to revise the nation’s high-school curriculum. The
revisions are scheduled to be implemented in September next year — the
beginning of that academic year — when one of the major changes is to be the
addition of the word “mainland” in references to China in Chinese language
and history textbooks. Also, the 50-year period of Japanese rule in Taiwan is
to be referred to as the “Japanese colonial period,” according to the revised
curriculum. Opposition
spokespeople have lambasted the so-called revisions as a “de-Taiwanification” of the curriculum. Huang
told a press conference held at the party headquarters in Taipei that
revisions to national high-school textbooks should be done within the
ministry’s system through normal procedures. However,
the proposed revised history curriculum guidelines, which the central
government called “minor adjustments,” were decided by a 10-person task force
formed outside the ministry, and includes academics who
are considered radical leftists who favor rapid unification with China, he
added. Huang
said the head of the task force, Wang Hsiao-po (王曉波), a professor at Shih Hsin University, is vice chairman of the Chinese
Unification Union, and that another task force member, Hsieh Ta-ning (謝大寧), a professor at Fo Guang University, has previously argued that Taiwanese
and Chinese students should use the same textbooks. Another
task force member, Pan Chao-yang (潘朝陽), a professor at National Taiwan Normal
University, previously made a comment saying that people of Taiwan who
advocate Taiwanese alliances with the US and Japan to counter China ought to
be considered “traitors to Han Chinese (漢奸),” Huang said. Huang
panned the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government for trying to control
students’ thought and monopolizing interpretation of Taiwanese history. He
asked the ministry to suspend the plan and have it subjected to customary
procedures. The
ministry should suspend the planned revision, Huang said, adding that the
ministry should also hold a number of discussions to hear opinions from
high-school teachers and the public. Shih Cheng-feng (施正鋒),
a professor at National Dong Hwa University, who
was also present at the press conference, said that the ministry announced
the proposed revision after the legislative session went into recess, saying
it was trying to dodge the legislative body’s
scrutiny. * 《Taipei Times》2014/02/08。 |
