As a teacher living in Japan who has taught at universities in Osaka and Okinawa for many years, I see several violent typhoons hit Japan each year.
What I have noticed over this time, and in contrast to how things seem to happen in Taiwan, is that the locals and students here have never been dissatisfied and taken issue with the Japanese government’s decisions over typhoon holidays. There is a good reason for this. It is because Japan has good systems in place to respond to typhoons. Thanks to these systems, prefectural governors and city mayors do not need to agonize over whether they should declare a typhoon holiday, nor take responsibility for erroneously declaring a holiday.
What follows is a description of the systems generally employed by schools and colleges in Okinawa. Hopefully they can be used to resolve issues over typhoon holidays in Taiwan.
When a typhoon approaches, the Japan Meteorological Agency releases one of two types of warnings based on wind speed: “strong wind” or “gale-force wind.”
Schools call typhoon holidays based upon these warnings. Specifically, the criterion for a holiday is whether the agency has issued a gale-force warning. A holiday cannot be called for a strong wind warning.
When the agency issues a gale-force warning, every level of educational institutions — elementary, junior and senior-high schools — close for the day.
If on the day of a typhoon the agency removes the gale-force warning before 6am — or sometimes before 8am, depending on the circumstances — classes would go ahead as normal. However, if the warning has not been removed by that time, students are not expected to go to school.
If the agency removes the gale-force warning before 11am — sometimes before 12pm — the students are expected to attend classes in the afternoon. If the agency has not removed the warning before that time, classes are called off for the entire day.
In Japan, the authorities take regional variations into account when issuing a gale-force wind warning. For example, according to the Osaka Government Web site, the criterion for a gale-force warning in the city is land-based wind speeds of 20m per second or faster. In Naha city, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, the criterion is different, and is set at 25m per second or higher.
The situation is a slight generalization that does not fully take into account regional differences. Nevertheless, the principle is more or less the same in each location. Local government agencies and businesses in each area more or less follow the same standards when it comes to deciding whether to announce a typhoon holiday.
Perhaps Japan’s system can be used as a reference to formulate a typhoon response system appropriate for the conditions in Taiwan.
Lin Wen-bin is a professor at Okinawa Polytechnic College.
Translated by Edward Jones
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