Fierce competition and weak regulation have made deceptive marketing and legally dubious practices widespread among private kindergartens, teachers’ union members said yesterday.
“Private kindergartens exist to make money, which gives rise to a wide variety of sales pitches and other gimmicks,” National Federation of Teachers’ Unions early childhood education committee member Lai Min-li (賴閔莉) said, citing deceptive statements about the quality of teachers.
“Many kindergartens emphasize that their teachers are young when in reality low pay forces them to hire inexperienced teachers and they also suffer from a high turnover rate,” Lai said. “While they say that all of their teachers are ‘qualified instructors,’ a significant percentage could be ‘instructional caretakers’ or even ‘assistant instructional caretakers’ rather than formal teachers.”
Instructional caretakers are subject to looser educational and licensing requirements when compared with formal teachers, with regulations limiting assistant instructional caretakers to a third of kindergartens’ instructors, she said, adding that it was difficult to enforce the rules requiring schools to prominently display their instructors’ qualifications.
“The qualifications can be up the day kindergartens are evaluated by inspectors, but then taken down the next. Because evaluations take place every five years, it is possible that the kindergartens have not updated the instructors’ qualifications to reflect their new teachers, so it is important for parents to examine and make comparisons,” she said, adding that setting standards for fees and ensuring the safety of school buses that pick up the students are also important issues.
“Sometimes kindergartens tell you that because there are not enough seats in the school bus, they will send another car to pick up your child, but that is illegal,” she said, adding that kindergartens can also use unreportable “activity” and “art” fees to get around price controls on tuition fees.
According to Ministry of Education statistics, private pre-schools account for about 70 percent of the nation’s kindergartens, with the unions calling for an expanded public-sector kindergarten system.
Three Taiwanese airlines have prohibited passengers from packing Bluetooth earbuds and their charger cases in checked luggage. EVA Air and Uni Air said that Bluetooth earbuds and charger cases are categorized as portable electronic devices, which should be switched off if they are placed in checked luggage based on international aviation safety regulations. They must not be in standby or sleep mode. However, as charging would continue when earbuds are placed in the charger cases, which would contravene international aviation regulations, their cases must be carried as hand luggage, they said. Tigerair Taiwan said that earbud charger cases are equipped
Foreign travelers entering Taiwan on a short layover via Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport are receiving NT$600 gift vouchers from yesterday, the Tourism Administration said, adding that it hopes the incentive would boost tourism consumption at the airport. The program, which allows travelers holding non-Taiwan passports who enter the country during a layover of up to 24 hours to claim a voucher, aims to promote attractions at the airport, the agency said in a statement on Friday. To participate, travelers must sign up on the campaign Web site, the agency said. They can then present their passport and boarding pass for their connecting international
Temperatures in northern Taiwan are forecast to reach as high as 30°C today, as an ongoing northeasterly seasonal wind system weakens, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. CWA forecaster Tseng Chao-cheng (曾昭誠) said yesterday that with the seasonal wind system weakening, warmer easterly winds would boost the temperature today. Daytime temperatures in northern Taiwan and Yilan County are expected to range from 28°C to 30°C today, up about 3°C from yesterday, Tseng said. According to the CWA, temperature highs in central and southern Taiwan could stay stable. However, the weather is expected to turn cooler starting tonight as the northeasterly wind system strengthens again
Taiwan sweltered through its hottest October on record, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday, the latest in a string of global temperature records. The main island endured its highest average temperature since 1950, CWA forecaster Liu Pei-teng said. Temperatures the world over have soared in recent years as human-induced climate change contributes to ever more erratic weather patterns. Taiwan’s average temperature was 27.381°C as of Thursday, Liu said. Liu said the average could slip 0.1°C by the end of yesterday, but it would still be higher than the previous record of 27.009°C in 2016. "The temperature only started lowering around Oct. 18 or 19
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