Gender News in Taiwan
2016.12.09
Misleading Sex-Ed Material Cut

【By Sean Lin】

Potentially misleading content in teaching materials for elementary and junior-high school sex education classes has been removed, Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung said yesterday on the sidelines of a meeting of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee.

Groups opposed to the legalization of same-sex marriage have often cited what they said were excerpts from elementary and junior-high school textbooks that allegedly encouraged students to “follow their sexual desires” and pursue “sexual liberalization.”

They said the textbooks risked destroying traditional values and could have a negative influence on students.

The National Association of Students’ Parents this month issued a statement against materials that it said could impose frameworks on students’ sexual orientations.

Content “blurring the gender lines” should also be removed, the association said.

“The content cited by the public was from a draft created for teachers’ manuals between 2008 and 2009. The manuals were revised after discussions were held,” Pan said.

“All sex education teaching materials now in use were created based on the Gender Equality Education Act to ensure that gender equality is upheld, enable pluralistic learning and prevent discrimination or misconceptions about people with different sexual orientations,” he said.

During the committee meeting’s question-and-answer session, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Rosalia Wu criticized Pan for what she said was his slow response to misleading information disseminated on school campuses.

Wu cited an exam question used by Hualien County Hua Gang Junior High School that said: “If the ‘alternative’ marriage bill is passed, siblings will be allowed to get married, and sons will be allowed to marry their stepmothers and daughters their stepfathers.”

Such materials could cause teachers to disseminate incorrect and misleading information to students, Wu said.

Pan should have been “furious,” but instead he was “slow and soft” in his response to such materials, she said.

Schools that utilize such misleading materials should be punished and required to make announcements regarding their negligence in handling them, she said.

Pan said that the Hualien County Government has launched an investigation into the school’s actions and it could be punished to prevent similar incidents.

[Taipei Times, 2016-12-09]

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