Wu Maw-kuen No Longer Qualified to Serve as Education Minister

  Wu Maw-kuen No Longer Qualified to Serve as Education Minister

 United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

May 7, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

The National Federation of Teachers Unions (NFTU), which launched the “Three Noes Movement” against Education Minister Wu Maw-kuen, yesterday protested at the venue of the “Textbook Guidelines Review Conference,” demanding that Education Minister Wu Maw-kuen step down in the name of “rescuing education.” The four NFTU delegates refused to take part in the textbook guidelines review; NFTU president Chang Hsu-cheng also said that Wu Maw-kuen didn’t draw a line between public and private affairs, and benefited himself, so much so that with him chairing the Textbook Guidelines Review Conference, it was the greatest humiliation to textbook guidelines.

Wu Maw-kuen is the most controversial Education Minister in history; his problems, such as blatantly padding his own salary, holding part-time jobs on the Mainland in violation of the law, usurping a university patent for himself, and taking leaves of absence as high as 60% of workdays, had been well-known throughout society. If in accordance with standards of morality and ethics of the political world, the Lai Cabinet should never have allowed Wu Maw-kuen to take office, so as not to taint the image of the government. Wu Maw-kuen, as a "co-conspirator" of the Lai Cabinet for blocking Kuan, we are afraid, would be even more blatant; his character would continue to arouse controversies in the education circle.

With a man who doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong, who is especially narrow in values, and biased in political stance, while lacking a sense of regret and shame, we are afraid, it would be wishful thinking to expect him to become an official of rectitude—especially a minister shouldering the heavy burden of education of the country, no matter how great his achievements in science might be. The Federation proclaimed that it would not accept Wu Maw-kuen as Education Minister, and that it would boycott the conference under Wu Maw-kuen’s chairmanship. This, for Premier Lai, is of course, a serious warning.

How could a man who couldn’t even attain the basic standards of morality, "law-abiding" and "honesty," lead the most important policy of education in a state? If the Tsai government continues to remain oblivious to the controversy over Wu Maw-kuen's ethical conduct, we are afraid, it will probably become an accomplice in the decay of education.

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