The Bureau of Education under the Taipei City Government has decided to launch an eyesight protection campaign in an effort to help improve Taipei schoolchildren's poor eyesight.
The bureau is planning to promote the campaign first in public elementary schools and kindergartens when the second semester begins in spring.
The program will ask all teachers at Taipei public primary schools and kindergartens to take eyesight improvement courses sponsored by the bureau, and school authorities will be required to provide standard lighting facilities, suitable desks and chairs and regular eyesight examinations for their students. Students with eyesight deficiencies will have to have their vision corrected.
The bureau will publicly cite those schools and kindergartens which are assessed to have performed well in these activities.
According to an investigation, the higher the grades of Taipei students, the poorer their eyesight tends to be.
Around 30 percent of first-graders in Taipei elementary schools have poor eyesight, while the percentage rises to 60 percent among sixth-graders and nearly 90 percent among senior high school students, the investigation revealed.
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