The Tainan County Teachers’ Association is planning to hold a demonstration on the eve of Teacher’s Day to protest against policies by Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智).
The protest, with a theme of “fight incompetence and save education,” is scheduled for 9am on Saturday in front of County Hall.
“Education requires long-term planning, which means that education policy should display continuity and transcend political differences,” the association’s press release said yesterday.
The association said that education in the county had suffered from insufficient resources and “unnecessary administrative interference” from the county government.
The association questioned Su’s ability to handle the county’s education budget.
Citing statistics from the Executive Yuan, the association said the amount of education budget that the county government failed to put to use between 2003 and 2006 amounted to NT$5.1 billion (US$159.7 million).
The association also panned Su for his leadership style, accusing him of being “dictatorial” when determining education policy.
The association said that Su had broken a promise made during his campaign by imposing a limit last school year on the number of teachers in the county’s primary, junior high and high schools who could receive positive annual reviews, regardless of protests by teachers.
“Although the county government lost an appeal case at the Ministry of Education over the closure of the Tsungyeh Elementary School, Su insisted on closing the school despite the protests of parents and students,” the association said.
The association was referring to the merger of Tsungyeh Elementary School and Wencheng Elementary School into a facility that would focus on fine arts.
The county amended its regulations to allow for the merger on July 15 — the day after the ministry’s Committee of Appeal had ruled in student representative Cheng Ya-hsin’s (鄭雅心) favor to reconsider the merger.
When told of the decision, Cheng was quoted by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) as saying she was happy “because I can graduate from Tsungyeh as I wished.”
In response to the association’s criticism, County Education Department Director-General Wang Kun-yuan (王崑源) said it was inappropriate for the association to judge the county government’s ability by simply citing statistics from the Executive Yuan because failure to fully use the education budget was common across the country.
Su had not commented on the matter publicly as of yesterday, but the county government issued a press release questioning the legitimacy of the demonstration, saying that the teachers should focus on how to improve their own expertise instead.
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