A local charity on Monday urged the public to provide more educational resources for disadvantaged children and young people in Taiwan, citing a poll showing that many of them did not get enough help with their schoolwork.
Fifty-six percent of the respondents in a recent poll said they had no one at home to help them with their homework or had not received such assistance when they had been students, said the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, which released the poll results.
Moreover, 73 percent said it was difficult for their families to pay to send them to after-school classes, while 70 percent predicted that the poor financial conditions of their families would limit their futures.
“The lack of educational resources could be one of the reasons why some of these children are doing less well academically,” charity research director Wei Chi-li said.
She called on university students to help her charity by devoting at least three hours every week to offering after-school tutoring for the country’s disadvantaged children and young adults.
She also urged cram schools and after-school study centers to offer discounts for underprivileged students and said the government should open more after-school classes in elementary, junior and senior-high schools for such students.
The poll, conducted over a period of two years between 2009 and last year, surveyed 4,774 people between the ages of seven and 25 from disadvantaged families funded by the charity.
It was the second such survey conducted by the charity after it released the first in 2009.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS