Reports about schools defying government regulations and improperly punishing students continue to make the news, raising the question of how endemic the situation is.
An investigative report released last week by the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy revealed that 72.5 percent of the nation’s senior-high schools and 95.6 percent of junior-high schools punish students for wearing unapproved winter clothes, and in many cases confiscate essential and common items such as scarves and beanies.
After reports in January that many schools were restricting students’ winter clothing — even though the Ministry of Education in August last year made it illegal to do so — Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) reminded educators that students are allowed to wear non-uniform clothing to keep warm.
The schools were apparently not paying attention.
The association also found that many schools allow students to wear winter clothing only when the temperature falls below 10°C, prompting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) to say: “When schools tell students that it is not cold enough, they are putting vestigial authoritarianism on display.”
Keeping warm is a basic human right that has nothing to do with education. The restrictions hearken back to the military-style education methods of the authoritarian era, when teachers regularly beat students, and controlled everything from the length of their hair to the books they read.
The situation is especially ironic, as Sunday was 228 Peace Memorial Day, when President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) urged Taiwanese to cherish their hard-won democracy, and railed against oppression and authoritarian rule.
People who might consider it an overstatement to compare school dress codes to oppression should know that during the Martial Law era, not only students were punished for their hairstyle and clothing choices, but adults were also required by law to keep in line with a government-accepted physical appearance. An example is Taiwan TV footage from 1971, which is available on YouTube, showing more than 100 men who were rounded up, fined and forcefully given haircuts at a police station.
The dress code issue is egregious on its own, but it seems to be part of the bigger issue of schools blatantly defying government directives and imposing their own brand of discipline on students.
For example, corporal punishment was banned in 2006, but cases of it keep surfacing — the investigative report found at least one school that still used corporal punishment.
The association in a report in May last year said that 152 schools had rules that violate students’ rights and that many of them were illegal.
This is not a debate about how much freedom students should be allowed, but rather about schools’ restrictions being against the law.
How are schools supposed to cultivate law-abiding, respectful citizens if they do not respect the government’s rules or the rights of students?
Fortunately, the nation has organizations such as the association that conduct inspections and surveys, otherwise students’ voices would be lost.
The association has said that the students do not trust the official channels to report school transgressions, as they have to do it through school personnel.
The government should conduct more frequent inspections of schools, many of which continue to deny any wrongdoing, and hold them fully responsible if they do not obey the law.
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