《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》MOE urged not to tie entrance exams to new curriculum

By Abraham Gerber / Staff reporter

Parents’ associations and other groups yesterday gathered outside the Ministry of Education in Taipei to protest against its promises to use controversial new high-school curriculum guidelines as the basis for the national college-entrance exams.

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“Since the curriculum guidelines are controversial, we call upon the Ministry of Education not to tie them to college-entrance exams,” National Alliance of Parents Organizations chairman Wu Fu-pin （吳福濱） said, urging the ministry to respect the professional autonomy of teachers to select textbooks, given that the curriculum guidelines have entered the legal process.

After five of the six national special municipalities announced that they would continue to use textbooks based on the previous, unadjusted guidelines, Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa （吳思華） on Wednesday said that the adjusted guidelines would serve as the basis for national examinations. Municipalities would have to take responsibility for any harm to student interests if they interfered with textbook choices, he added.

The “minor adjustments” announced by the ministry have fueled controversy for what critics call an opaque approval process and a China-centric tilt.

The ministry is appealing a February ruling by the Taipei High Administrative Court that it fully publicize meeting minutes and ballot results for the committee that approved the changes.

Because the changes were billed by the ministry as “minor adjustments,” printing licenses for old textbooks remain valid.

National Association for the Promotion of Community Colleges director Hsieh Kuo-ching （謝國清） called on the ministry to “spare” schoolchildren unnecessary uncertainty and changes, saying that the curriculum guidelines could be overturned if a transfer of political power occurs after next year’s presidential elections.

Guidelines could be changed yet again in 2018, when the ministry is to implement new curriculum guidelines for the 12-year national education program, he added.

“The Ministry of Education should call it quits,” he said. “Given the controversy and that they have already lost a lawsuit, nothing would be lost if they halted implementation.”

He added that the guidelines were already controversial when he sat on the review committee that approved them, with many committee members questioning ministry’s claims to have made only “minor adjustments,” apparently to allow it to make changes before existing curriculum guidelines expired.

Taiwan Association of Human Rights Group representative Hsu Jen-shou （許仁碩） called for the ministry to publicize documentation related to the 12-year national education curriculum guidelines under consideration, saying that the ministry had no clear legal foundation for keeping proceedings secret.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES