Ninety percent of senior-high school principals in Taipei are against a central government policy to retire military instructors from campuses, a Taipei Department of Education survey has found.
The department this month conducted a survey among principals at 69 senior-high schools in Taipei, which found that 90 percent of them were against the Ministry of Education’s policy to replace military instructors with security guards, while 99 percent of respondents said that they were satisfied with military instructors’ service at their schools.
Military instructors are soldiers assigned by the Ministry of National Defense to high schools, colleges and universities to teach basic military training courses and protect students.
Photo: Shen Pei-yao, Taipei Times
The legislature in 2013 passed a supplementary resolution to an amendment to the Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法), which states that military instructors should be gradually retired from senior-high schools, by closing job vacancies — on the condition that student safety can be ensured — so that soldiers can reintegrate into the national defense system.
Seventy-four percent of principals said that they disagreed that instructors’ work can be handed over to security guards, according to the survey released on Friday.
Military instructors are no longer a symbol of authoritarian education, but are concerned with protecting students, preventing schoolyard bullying and violence and barring drugs and gangsters from entering campuses, the department said.
“The survey results showed that the majority of principals believe removing military instructors from campuses would give rise to a transitional period that would be unsafe for students,” it said.
The department said it would forward the survey results to the Ministry of Education and ask it to be prudent about its policy to retire military instructors.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei city councilors on the same day held a news conference to defend military instructors’ role on campuses.
The ministry has set out a plan to train 1,000 security guards every year and replace all instructors by 2021, but every security guard would only receive 70 hours of training.
NO HUMAN ERROR: After the incident, the Coast Guard Administration said it would obtain uncrewed aerial vehicles and vessels to boost its detection capacity Authorities would improve border control to prevent unlawful entry into Taiwan’s waters and safeguard national security, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday after a Chinese man reached the nation’s coast on an inflatable boat, saying he “defected to freedom.” The man was found on a rubber boat when he was about to set foot on Taiwan at the estuary of Houkeng River (後坑溪) near Taiping Borough (太平) in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), authorities said. The Coast Guard Administration’s (CGA) northern branch said it received a report at 6:30am yesterday morning from the New Taipei City Fire Department about a
IN BEIJING’S FAVOR: A China Coast Guard spokesperson said that the Chinese maritime police would continue to carry out law enforcement activities in waters it claims The Philippines withdrew its coast guard vessel from a South China Sea shoal that has recently been at the center of tensions with Beijing. BRP Teresa Magbanua “was compelled to return to port” from Sabina Shoal (Xianbin Shoal, 仙濱暗沙) due to bad weather, depleted supplies and the need to evacuate personnel requiring medical care, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) spokesman Jay Tarriela said yesterday in a post on X. The Philippine vessel “will be in tiptop shape to resume her mission” after it has been resupplied and repaired, Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, who heads the nation’s maritime council, said
REGIONAL STABILITY: Taipei thanked the Biden administration for authorizing its 16th sale of military goods and services to uphold Taiwan’s defense and safety The US Department of State has approved the sale of US$228 million of military goods and services to Taiwan, the US Department of Defense said on Monday. The state department “made a determination approving a possible Foreign Military Sale” to the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US for “return, repair and reshipment of spare parts and related equipment,” the defense department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a news release. Taiwan had requested the purchase of items and services which include the “return, repair and reshipment of classified and unclassified spare parts for aircraft and related equipment; US Government
More than 500 people on Saturday marched in New York in support of Taiwan’s entry to the UN, significantly more people than previous years. The march, coinciding with the ongoing 79th session of the UN General Assembly, comes close on the heels of growing international discourse regarding the meaning of UN Resolution 2758. Resolution 2758, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971, recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “only lawful representative of China.” It resulted in the Republic of China (ROC) losing its seat at the UN to the PRC. Taiwan has since been excluded from