Authorities in Taipei are striving to keep children from dropping out of school or going hungry because their parents recently lost jobs because of the nation's worst economic downturn in decades.
In Taipei, about 2,400 children from the county's 280 elementary and junior high schools cannot pay for their school lunches, officials said.
The children's families are not listed among those eligible for the subsidies made available to low-income households.
For the time being, however, the lunches are being paid for with emergency school funds, Huang Li-hsien, deputy director of the bureau of education, said yesterday.
Two decades of economic prosperity have raised a generation of pampered children in Taiwan. Now, hungry and other miserable kids are making headlines.
Tuition in elementary and junior high schools is free in Taiwan. Still, newspapers said many children recently dropped out of school because their parents could not afford school lunches, textbooks, uniforms and other expenses.
Taiwan's jobless rate is expected to hit a new annual high of 4.57 percent this year, up from last year's 2.99 percent, as many factories downsized or shut down in the worst economic recession that has hit the island in decades.
The jobless rate among men -- the key earner in many families -- hit nearly 6 percent last month, against a rate for women of 4.28 percent.
While men were laid off by factories, women found lower-paying jobs in fast-food and other service sector jobs, officials said.
"We are doing all we can to prevent the economic woes from hurting the children, and we are soliciting business donations to help resolve the problem," Huang said.
The slumping economy may hold at least one bright spot for those who have fallen below the poverty line.
School children are now taught about the traditional virtues of lending a helping hand and "spending on the most worthy" rather than squandering on toys, Huang said.
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