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Elementary student wins case against merger plan

An elementary school student’s appeal to the Ministry of Education to overturn the local government’s decision to merge her school with a neighboring one has succeeded, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported yesterday.

The Tainan County Government said in May it would merge Tsungyeh Elementary School in Matou Township (麻豆) with Wencheng Elementary School and turn them into a fine arts elementary school, the Liberty Times said.

Several parents of Tsungyeh students brought their children along with them to protest in front of the ministry on June 20, kneeling in front of the building and asking that the merger be canceled.

Student representative Cheng Ya-hsin (鄭雅心) also petitioned the ministry’s Committee of Appeal. On Monday, the committee ruled that Tsungyeh had won its case.

When told of the decision, Cheng was quoted by the Liberty Times as saying she was happy “because I can graduate from Tsungyeh as I wished.”

In its ruling, the committee said the county government had harmed Tsungyeh students’ rights to receive a proper education. The Tsungyeh parent-teacher association’s lawyer, Lee Yu-you (李育虞), was quoted as saying that: “By law, if the committee withdrew the county government’s decision to merge the two schools, then Tsungyeh should continue to stand alone.”

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) spoke on behalf of Tsungyeh while visiting Hongye Elementary School in a remote part of Taitung County late last month, saying that closing the school required a review because it could widen the education gap between urban and rural areas.

Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智) said the county was right to want to merge the two schools, adding that based on Article 19 of the Local Government Act (地方制度法), the ministry’s decision “had severely violated local governments rights to self-govern.”

Su said yesterday that the county would merge the schools as planned and may file an administrative lawsuit against the ministry.

He said he would also consider seeking a ruling on the constitutionality of the ministry’s decision.

Su said the ministry had only rejected the merger plan after media reported that Ma was concerned about the issue.

“This was clearly meant to pander to Ma,” Su said.
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