Let schools remain pure
According to newspaper reports, the Taipei City Government is planning to introduce smart vending machines into schools across the capital.
Reports indicate that Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) administration plans to install 236 machines in senior-high schools down to elementary schools, with at least one in each school.
A number of parents voiced misgivings and questioned what right the city government has to demand that schools comply with its request to install machines from “partner” companies. Others have questioned whether schools would be able to control what products are sold.
As a veteran of the education profession, I would suggest that Ko’s administration should concentrate on high-level policy and leave the day-to-day minutiae of running schools to their governing boards.
City officials should leave decisions over whether to install smart vending machines to individual schools, otherwise what role does this leave for school principals, their governing bodies — and parents?
Furthermore, given the established principle that elementary and junior-high schools are responsible for upholding educational values within their schools — and are the ultimate guarantors of the rights of their teachers and students — surely the decision whether to install these machines should be left to each school?
It is the governing body of each school, not the city government, that most clearly understands the needs of its students, which clearly are not the same for each school.
Looked at from this perspective, the top-down imposition of these smart vending machines by the Ko administration is nonsensical.
Over the past two decades, schools have been trying to remove vending machines from their campuses. This has not been easy. Schools have had to shut down lucrative associations that were supplying unhealthy junk food and sugary drinks.
Furthermore, having persuaded students to switch to healthy snacks and natural drinks, why should schools now throw open the doors to a new wave of vending machines that would threaten to undo all this good work?
Schools should strive to be an oasis of purity, free from outside interference.
If we allow a company to install smart vending machines in our schools, but also manage the machines and control which products they sell, this will invariably create a whole host of entirely avoidable problems.
Ko, who likes to boast of his administration’s transparency and openness, needs to provide an explanation.
Tsai Tien
Taipei
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