Civic groups yesterday urged the Ministry of Education (MOE) to bring in social workers to schools to provide counseling for problematic students.
The call came in the wake of recent allegations that the former principal of Taoyuan County’s Bade Junior High School, Wu Chia-ku (於家穀), repeatedly turned a blind eye to the worsening safety situation at her school.
Vita Yeh (葉大華), secretary-general of the Taiwan Alliance for Advancement of Youth Rights and Welfare, told a press conference yesterday that formulating an anti-bullying law or isolating bullies would not help solve the problem.
Yeh called on the government to earmark between NT$1 billion (US$33.5 million) and NT$2 billion every year to recruit school social workers or guidance counselors.
Garden of Hope Foundation executive director Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容), who also attended the conference, said social workers can help schools seek the resources they need to deal with bullying.
The National Teachers Association also issued a statement, saying that local and foreign movies and the adult world have misled teenagers into believing that they can overwhelm other people with physical or verbal violence while failing to teach them the potential legal consequences they could face.
The association called on the ministry to oblige schools to fully explain related legal -responsibilities to students as soon as students enroll in the schools and refer those who have committed an offense to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, some students at Bade Junior High School reportedly threw firecrackers at a teacher when the teacher went to the toilet on Tuesday despite Minister of Education Wu Ching-ji’s (吳清基) surprise visit there that day.
Acting principal Tai Chin-ming (戴進明) said the accused students did not admit any wrongdoing, but Tai vowed to probe the allegation.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai