Anti-Black Box Curriculum Movement

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.

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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 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, 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.