2015.8.1 Government to blame for curriculum controversy

2015年8月1日，《Taipei Times（英文台北時報）》。

作者：Wu Chan-liang 吳展良（台大歷史系教授）

The controversy over adjustments to high-school curriculum guidelines has reached this sorry state due to the government’s failure to do things according to proper procedure and its refusal to admit to making mistakes. It has been too complacent and too fixed upon its agenda.

For many years now, Taiwan has been embroiled in the controversial issue of whether it should be independent or unified with China. This issue involves how Taiwanese identify themselves, and concerns their very survival. For that reason, the curriculum to be taught to the next generation of high-school children is a sensitive matter and demands a considerable degree of caution on the part of the government.

The basic principle on which controversial issues of this ilk are to be addressed in a democratic society is that they should be approached in a rational and orderly way, so that all respective opinions receive an equal opportunity to be expressed. However, from the start, there have been several procedural and legal issues over how the so-called “minor adjustments” have been developed.

When the Ministry of Education embarked upon making the changes, it failed to adhere to appropriate procedures, ignoring the subsequent controversy over procedural and legal issues, and allowed the changes to be drawn up, behind closed doors, by ideologues. The result was that the “minor adjustments” turned out to be sweeping changes to the content of the curriculum, and not ones that experts in pertinent university departments would lend their support to. The ministry, committing mistake after mistake but refusing to admit fault, tried to frame the views of any protesters as a constitutional issue or within the context of the independence-unification debate, turning it into an ideological battle between those two sides. Of course, all this did was make matters worse.

The issue was initially confined to the worlds of academia and politics. When students became involved, however, the ministry declined to meet with them, fearing that this would turn into another student movement. For this reason, the ministry canceled a seminar that had been organized, making student groups even more incensed. When the students broke into the ministry and Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa’s (吳思華) office, the minister responded by taking legal action and accused the opposition of being unethical and having a hand in organizing the protest. This only further inspired students from all over the nation to take part in the movement, making the entire younger generation more sympathetic to the idea of independence.

Students are still innocent and passionate. When they see injustice, they stand up to it, without having any predetermined political stance. The government likes to blame others when it encounters problems. Perhaps it would do better to look closer to home and reflect upon why it is that there have been so many protests about procedure, closed-door deals, recklessness and democratic failings.

A year-and-a-half on, it is perhaps a little late in the day to bring the law into this controversy, especially since these kids have not, or have just, turned 18. To bring the law in at this point could destroy the lives of these young people. It has also whipped up a lot of anger in the wider community. The government should embark on some radical reforms, hold back on the curricular adjustments and order a thorough review of the whole affair, right from the start, concentrating on the procedural and legal problems.

Wu Chan-liang is a professor in the Department of History at National Taiwan University.

Translated by Paul Cooper