2005.04.01 Minister Tu and Deputy Minister Fan receive Executive Vice President Terrence B. Adamson and Editorial Director Amy Kolczak of the acclaimed National Geographic Magazine

2005.4.01 Minister of Education Tu Cheng-Sheng (center) and Deputy Minister Fan Sun-lu (right) receive the Executive Vice President Terrence B. Adamson (left) and Editorial Director Amy Kolczak (2nd right) of the acclaimed National Geographic Magazine.

The R.O.C. (Taiwan) Minister of Education Tu Cheng-Sheng together with Deputy Minister Fan Sun-lu received the Executive Vice President of National Geographic Magazine, Editorial Director Amy Kolczak and Deputy General Manager Levin Huang, on April 1, 2005 in order to discuss the participation of Taiwan's school children in their organizations' National Geographic World Championship.

A local Championship contest will be organized by the Ministry of Education, the National Geographic Society and the National Geographic Magazine in order to allow elementary school children in Taiwan between the grades of 6-9, an opportunity to participate in a contest and to display their knowledge of world geography, before May 31, 2005.

This is the first time for Taiwan to be invited to send participants to this highly acclaimed international event. Therefore, the Ministry of Education is encouraging its elementary teachers to actively include geography into their classrooms, in order to create student interest and public awareness about world geography. Students will be expected to answer questions on physical, cultural and economic geography for each of the competition's two stages. Three winners will be selected out of more than 1,200,000 elementary school children to represent Taiwan at the VII World Championship, to be held in Budapest, Hungary, in July 2005.

The R.O.C. (Taiwan) Ministry of Education Deputy Minister Fan Sun-lu received the Director Yuma, of the National Culture and Arts Foundation, on April 1, 2005. Director Yuma offered a special presentation about Taiwan's aboriginal Atayal tribe, noted for their skillful weaving designs, clothing and architecture. Director Yuma presented Deputy Minister Fan with several periodicals about the history of this tribe, in order to promote cultural and art education for the aboriginal people of Taiwan.