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Taipei councilors slam public schools for tacking on fees

Taipei City councilors yesterday accused public schools in the city of fabricating excuses to charge students extra fees, urging the Education Department to establish a fee-charging system and make expense records public.As part of the nation's compulsory education, public elementary and junior high school students enjoy tuition-free education. However, it has been a customary practice for many schools and parent-teacher associations (PTAs) to charge students fees for various purposes, such as class administration, protection, extracurricular activities and even restroom maintenance, Independent Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) said.

VARYING FEES

Statistics provided by the department showed that the fees different public schools and PTAs charge every semester varied from NT$120 to more than NT$20,000. Autonomous regulations in Taipei City allow schools and PTAs to charge fees, but schools are not required to make the expense records public.

“Some of the fees, such as snack fees, are necessary, but a majority of the fees are charged without a clear explanation. Do you think parents can refuse to pay and let their kids feel the pressure?” Chen told a press conference at Taipei City Council.

Democratic Progressive Party Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said that except for some required fees, such as those for lunch or transportation, other fees should be classified as donations with parents given the option of paying or not.

Most schools, however, fail to inform parents about their options and just hand a notice to students asking them to give a certain amount of money, she said.

TASK FORCE

In response, Liang Yong-fei (梁永斐), a division chief at the department, acknowledged that autonomous regulations did not address the issue of school fees clearly enough and promised to tighten the regulations before the next school semester begins next year.

Liang said the department would form a special task force to handle the issue and would ask schools to post their fee records on their Web sites starting next semester.
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