The Anti-Black Box Curriculum Movement was a 2015 Taiwanese student protest, against certain proposed senior high school curriculum changes. "Black box" is a reference to the students' concerns about the lack of transparency of the proposed changes. On 23 July 2015, the protesters stormed the Ministry of Education.
Protested changes
The proposed changes to the high school history curriculum were to social studies, including the mention in textbooks of Japanese war crimes during their occupation of TaiwanIn Taiwanese historiography debates, supporters of Taiwan independence and a Taiwanese national consciousness prefer to downplay Japanese war crimes and emphasize aspects of the White Terror that the Kuomintang inflicted in Taiwan and the acknowledgement of comfort women sex-slavery in Asia; Chinese literature selections.
Students also protested what they felt was too much rote memorization through Buxiban cramming in the educational system (part of the buke practice of intensive extracurricular preparation for high school admissions tests), as well as perceived corruption and illegal connections between politicians. Taiwanese voters have demanded that opposing political parties, e.g. KMT versus DPP, act with integrity so as to put a check on each other.
Outcome The student protest movement was successful. On 22 May 2016, Minister of Education Pan Wen-Chung announced that the curriculum changes would not be implemented. He also stated that certain proposed to changes to national high school curriculum would be delayed until 2020.
See also List of protests in the 21st century
References
External links
President Ma's "Black Box" Problem