The Ministry of Education (MOE) in 2020 issued the Regulations on the Dismissal, Non-renewal, Suspension or Layoff of Teachers at the Senior High School Level and Below (高級中等以下學校教師解聘不續聘停聘或資遣辦法) to deal with situations in which teaching staff find themselves accused of misconduct.
According to Article 4, upon receiving a report or becoming aware of a teacher’s suspected misconduct, the school must convene a “campus incident resolution council” (校事會議) within five days.
Since then, this new term has emerged in on campuses (abbreviated as the “incident meeting” in this article). However, over the past five years, many principals have gotten into trouble for holding incident meetings, while teachers mostly perceive the meetings as an impingement on their working rights.
This shows the need for better positioning and functionality of the incident meetings.
The incident meeting system faces three major difficulties.
First, the threshold for accepting a case is too low, as an anonymous, unsubstantiated complaint can trigger an investigation.
Second, the independence and professionalism of the investigations are inadequate, as educators with only brief training are forced to perform quasi-judicial work, making it difficult to avoid biases and conflicts of interest.
Third, the random selection of “external experts” as meeting members could raise concerns about quality control.
Last, the resolution mechanism is inadequate, so teachers have nowhere to appeal against the results.
Trust among teachers is the foundation of education. When a poor system makes serious educators easy targets of campus lawsuits and hold them accountable without grounds, the vitality of education is likely to be stifled.
There are ways these issues could be fixed.
First, a clear threshold for case acceptance must be set, and anonymous, unsubstantiated accusations should be rejected.
Second, by establishing an independent investigation mechanism, operated by impartial and professional third-party institutions — rather than “external experts” with limited training.
Third, is improving the resolution mechanism by giving teachers under investigation the right to be informed and defend themselves.
Fourth, a clear time limit should be set to avoid causing long-term burden on the parties involved.
Fifth, is grounding rights and obligations in accordance with the law, instead of the school’s administrative regulations, which might not have a egal basis.
Lastly, there must be opportunities for improvement before a case is accepted.
The incident meeting could be positioned as a platform for dialogue aimed at correcting undesirable teaching practices.
Whether through an investigation or a deliberation, the goal should be to make teaching more effective, and to ensure that dialogue is more precise, rigorous and aligned with procedural justice, so that the outcome could foster mutual understanding and acceptance.
Thanks to outstanding talents cultivated by its education system, Taiwan is able to hold a place on the world stage.
Teachers should be treated with respect. Hopefully, the ministry can come up with guidelines for the incident meetings soon, so that rampant, unsubstantiated campus litigation could stop.
Chen Chien-hsien is an assistant professor at Meiho University’s Department of Social Work.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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