‘PSEUDO-DISPUTE’:Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa said that the new curriculum was promulgated in February last year and that new textbooks have already been printed
Taipei Times
Date: Aug 05, 2015
By: Alison Hsiao and Abraham Gerber / Staff reporters
A legislative cross-caucus meeting yesterday decided against an extraordinary
Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa, left, shakes hands with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lai Shyh-bao before attending a meeting of the KMT legislative caucus in Taipei yesterday. Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
legislative session, as student protesters had demanded, and instead advised the Ministry of Education (MOE) to immediately launch reviews of curriculum guidelines in accordance with the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法) and to allow schools to freely choose which textbooks they use.
A meeting in the legislature was held yesterday to decide whether an extraordinary legislative session was needed. The meeting had been scheduled to take place at 10:30am, but did not begin until nearly noon, after a prolonged cross-caucus negotiation behind closed doors.
Faced with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus’ strong opposition, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus withdrew its proposal to call an extraordinary legislative session to discuss whether to withdraw new curriculum guidelines. Instead, it was agreed in the cross-caucus negotiation that the Ministry of Education would be advised to adhere to Article 43 of the act to immediately establish a “curriculum council” to examine senior-high school curriculum guidelines, and that schools should be free to choose their own textbooks in the new school year. [FULL STORY]
