Although corporal punishment has been banned in schools and regulations on the length of students’ hair were lifted by the Ministry of Education (MOE) years ago, such things are still common in schools across the country, a survey released by the Humane Education Foundation (HEF) suggested yesterday.
A revision of the Education Basic Law (教育基本法) adopted in 2005 banned all forms of corporal punishment in schools, while an announcement made by the ministry that same year abolished regulations on the length and style of students’ hair out of respect for student rights.
“However, to our disappointment, 31.33 percent of junior high school students across the country said that they have received corporal punishment [in the last semester],” HEF executive director Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭) told a news conference.
The actual percentage of students having received corporal punishment may be higher since “during the survey, some students told us that they didn’t receive such punishment because their teachers told them that being hit on the palm doesn’t count as corporal punishment,” Feng said.
The survey included 1,433 students in 229 junior high schools scattered cross 22 counties and cities on Taiwan proper.
On hair regulations, 70.13 percent of respondents said their schools still dictate hair style and length and examine their hair styles on a regular basis.
A video clip shot in May was played during the news conference.
The clip showed a school administrator ordering a group of students to squat jump before a crowd as the school principal talked on stage because they had chatted while the principal was talking.
“The school administrator was there, the principal was there, and the teachers were there while the students were asked to do the jumps. Teachers are essentially breaking the law in front of their students every day,” Feng said.
Voice recordings of how students were treated when they violated the hair regulations was also played during the press conference.
“If you girls want to keep your hair long, then you should tie it up,” a school administer told a student. “If you can’t even do that, I don’t know what you have in your brain!”
Lin Wan-yi (林萬億), a social work professor at National Taiwan University, said that “teachers often have the idea of managing [students] rather than educating.”
Fort Liao (廖福特), an associate research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Law, said the teachers should better understand the concept of human rights — even for students.
“I suggest that the MOE include respect for human rights — rather than just academic achievements — as part of a teacher’s or school’s evaluation,” he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods