After its 880 billion forward-looking plan, the DPP and Tsai Ing-wen government pursue another major initiative! Aligned with the 12-Year Compulsory Education Curriculum Standards rolling out in 2019, high school social studies curriculum development accelerates quickly, with the draft sent to the National Academy for Curriculum Development review. Expected public announcement in July, public hearings in September. Some view this plan as furthering the goal of “cultural Taiwan independence.”
The 12-Year Compulsory Education social studies curriculum draft exposes itself. Relative to traditional history narratives centered on ethnic Han bloodlines, the new curriculum reduces required history credits from 8 to 6 units, removing historically familiar materials. Specifically:
- History will prioritize recent events, focusing on Taiwan’s last 500 years.
- Making students the learning subjects, starting from familiar Taiwan and expanding outward, placing Chinese history independently within East Asian history.
- World history will emphasize how foreign countries interacted with Taiwan, aiming to construct the next generation’s historical perspective with Taiwan as the subject.
Furthermore, social studies teaching objectives emphasize cultivating civic literacy and critical thinking ability in students, emphasizing “learning through doing,” pioneering “questionable” open curriculum standards. Students learn to view curriculum critically, questioning who wrote history and whose history it is, while discussing how Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu became Taiwan.
Additionally, guiding students to reflect on understanding the past, including “forming diverse ethnic society,” “economic and cultural diversity,” and “shaping modern states.” Taiwan is a diverse ethnic society, yet past history curricula centered on Han peoples. This new curriculum makes indigenous peoples a standalone category, requiring students to understand contemporary indigenous peoples’ circumstances and rights advocacy.
History unit coordinator and National Chengchi University associate professor, Jin Shih-chi, a student of former Education Minister Du Zhengsheng, explains during a seminar that the new curriculum doesn’t aim to prepare high school students to become historians. In democratic times emphasizing people as subjects, for example, the Yellow Turban Rebellion in Eastern Han China as peasant movement, students should think from the people’s perspective, not from traditional emperor viewpoints. This represents a major transformation.
High school history, geography, and civics electives total 24 credits. According to the social studies curriculum draft, new courses will be colorful and diverse.
For instance, history electives focus on themes like “ethnicity, gender, and national history” and “art, technology, and environmental history,” listing “women and politics” and “gender and society” as single units, exploring historical female leaders, women under nationalism, gender equality movement development, marriage and family changes, including diverse family structures and same-sex relationships addressing youth concerns.