Minister of Education Cheng Jei-cheng (鄭瑞城) said yesterday that military instructors would never become teaching staff in the nation’s elementary and junior high schools.
“I will never allow military instructors to be recruited as staffers at junior high and primary schools,” Cheng said during a question-and-answer session with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲).
Cheng said military instructors would only speak to pupils about national defense education during weekly assemblies at the invitation of schools.
Cheng was responding to Kuan’s questions regarding a proposal titled “Improvement and Adjustment of the Work of Military Instructors,” which was published by the ministry on Feb. 11.
The proposal suggested that the ministry include “national defense education” in the curriculums of elementary schools and junior high schools and have military instructors from senior and vocational high schools provide assistance to nearby junior high and elementary schools.
This measure is in line with the National Defense Education Act (全民國防教育法), which stipulates that schools should promote national defense education, the proposal said.
The proposal fueled controversy and drew criticism from civic groups and the DPP as the presence of military instructors on campus dates back to the 1950s, when they were responsible for students’ military training, discipline and political education.
They are now generally tasked with ensuring campus safety at high schools and universities. Those at high schools are also responsible for student discipline, counseling and military training courses.
“Military instructors are not the only ones who have the expertise to help the ministry promote national defense education,” Kuan said. “The ministry can instead recruit graduate students of international affairs and strategic studies.”
The minister said he “agreed” with Kuan’s suggestion, adding that the ministry would take her idea into consideration.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,