Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Education with no indoctrination

Chen Chi-nung 陳啟濃

Alice Ou (區桂芝), who teaches Chinese language and literature at Taipei First Girls’ High School, stirred up controversy over remarks she made at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan on Monday last week, in which she criticized the 2019 curriculum guidelines for de-emphasizing classical Chinese.

Subsequently, Ou sought to rationalize her remarks by citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) advocacy of respect for freedom of identity.

However, Ou is responsible for teaching high-school students who are under 18 years old, in this case at the prestigious Taipei First Girls’ High School, where she is said to often spout off about her political leanings in the classroom.

Curriculum changes appropriate

Linus Chiou 邱士哲

Taipei First Girls’ High School literature teacher Alice Ou’s (區桂芝) criticism of the move to de-emphasize classical Chinese in the 2019 curriculum guidelines opened the door for heated discourse on education policy and culture.

Ou’s position as an educator at one of Taiwan’s best high schools lends credence to her relatively reactionary argument that the cut in the number of classical Chinese texts was “a crime deserving more than 10,000 deaths.”

Classical content still averages about 35 to 45 percent of high-school Chinese literature textbooks, as opposed to 45 to 65 percent under the previous curriculum.

Deepfakes pose risk for the election

Weber Lai 賴祥蔚

Vice Premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) was accused of having an “illicit affair” a few months ago, after a video showing a man, who resembled Cheng, entering a hotel room with a woman was circulated online. In response, Cheng has said multiple times that the man in the video was not him, and he has asked his lawyer to file a defamation lawsuit to prove his innocence.

The Criminal Investigation Bureau, which was supposed to determine whether the video was generated by artificial intelligence (AI), said that the result was “inconclusive.”

Nothing is deep-green about Ko

Lai Yen-cheng 賴彥丞

Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman and presidential candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) recently reiterated that he is “deep-green at heart,” a remark that pro-Taiwan supporters found dubious or even held in disdain.

The “deep green” faction is a pro-indigenous force that promotes Taiwanese sovereignty by putting Taiwan’s interests first. That Ko had the audacity to make a series of “anti-indigenous” moves, such as saying the “two sides of the Strait are one family,” condemning the idea of countering China and safeguarding Taiwan, proposing to revive plans of a cross-strait service trade agreement with China and partnering with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for his own political interests, have shown that he is not as “deep green” as he claims to be, for these were all intolerable actions in the eyes of pro-Taiwan supporters.

More Articles...