Hit hard by a declining birthrate, Penghu County yesterday said that three of its elementary schools had welcomed only one new student each for the new school year.
The county said that since most of its schools are spread across several islands, it has numerous small schools, but fewer classes.
The latest official figures showed that there were 22 schools with less than 50 people each, including faculty, the Penghu County Government said, adding that 24 schools had less than 10 people each.
Photo: Liu Yu-ching, Taipei Times
While three schools welcomed only one new student each this year, there were already more children this year, thanks to the Year of the Dragon in 2012, it said.
Many Taiwanese parents believe that the dragon is an auspicious symbol and choose to have their babies that year.
Ministry of the Interior statistics showed that 234,599 babies were born in 2012, compared with 196,627 in 2011.
Jhongtun Elementary School in Baisha Township (白沙) and Jhuwan Elementary School in Siyu Township (西嶼) were to receive two students each, but one of the Jhongtun students transferred to Jiangmei Elementary School, while the parents for the other applied for home-schooling, the county government said.
The other school, Hujing Elementary School, on Hujing Isle (虎井嶼), has a total of six students, all of whom are related, the county said.
Meanwhile, Penghu Elementary School added 614 new students this year, nearly 100 more than the 521 students recorded last year.
Nantou County reported a similar problem with enrollment, saying that 22 schools added fewer than three students this year, while seven remote elementary schools welcomed one each.
Nantou Bureau of Education Director Lee Meng-chen (李孟珍) said the agency has instructed all schools to assist in acclimatizing new students, especially the seven in which there would only be one student per class.
Social activities should be planned and students should not be left alone, which could affect their ability to learn to interact with others, Lee said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS