Taiwan Church News

3309 Edition

July 27 - August 2, 2015

Headline News

Students Broke Into MOE Compound, Demanding Illegal Curriculum Guidelines Be Taken Down

Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong and Chen Yi-shuan

In order to protest against the illegal104 curriculum guidelines, which were scheduled to be effective from August 1,a new wave of high school students' campaign swept across Taiwan island.

On July 22, a calling of high school students to besiege the Ministry of Education(MOE) was launched by NorthernTaiwan Anti-Curriculum Changes Alliance(NTACCA). Student Shiau, the spokesperson of NTACCA, expressed that the action to besiege MOE was not really what the students expected, but the last resort responding to a series of negotiation blockades and finally an arrogant barricade set up around MOE.

In the evening on July 23, close to the midnight, dozens of protesting students with civil protesters stormed into the building of MOE, broke into the minister's office on the second floor and locked them up inside. As the students and civil protesters breaking into MOE were outnumbered by the police force, 33 persons were soon arrested including 3 reporters.

Though these 33 persons were released before 9:00 pm on July 24, MOE still decided to "file the lawsuit painstakingly" regardless most them were under 18 years-old.

The hot debated issue of the so-called "micro-adjustment of high school curriculem guidelines" on Taiwan island isgenerally conceived to be an illegal "black box" decision, as it was sentenced to breach the due process in the first trial of Taipei High Administrative Court.

Standing by the plead of NTACCA with banner: " As a high school student, I oppose the curriculum guidelineschanges", a group of Tainan high school students from 18 (vocational) high schools including Tainan Girls' High School, Tainan First High School, Chang-Jung High School and etc, held an anti-curriculum changes conference at Tainan's Zhengda Bookstore on July 26. High school students, teachers and education experts, even MOE officials, were invited to deliver a possible solution on curriculum problems. It's a pity, however, there was not any MOE representative appeared in that assembly.

Translated by Peter Wolfe