Children want the president to improve schools with better facilities and more rest time, a survey released yesterday by the Child Welfare League Foundation showed.
The foundation asked 1,041 children to write down what they wanted the nation’s president to focus on next.
The results showed that 33.7 percent of participating children wanted the president to improve in various ways the education system and school environments.
Photo: Huang Hsin-po, Taipei Times
Additionally, 29.8 percent wanted more rest time outside of classes, 17.6 percent wanted better access to medical care in remote communities and 17.2 percent wanted policies that would better protect the rights of children and students from underprivileged families.
The foundation said that it is important to listen to the opinions of children, who are increasingly asserting their rights.
For example, Pakistani Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has stood up for the rights of girls and women, Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg has fought for action on climate change and Taiwanese children have opposed restrictions on student attire and grooming, it said.
Foundation members said that they were impressed by the participants’ written responses, which included calls for the next president to “help children with no money to get schooling,” “attach more importance to the opinions of children” and “give assistance to capable individuals who are held back by economic or environmental constraints.”
The foundation also distributed questionnaires to students at 43 schools nationwide. Of the 1,687 respondents, 80 percent said they are concerned about social issues.
However, only 23.2 percent said they are bold enough to voice their opinions on social issues, 43.4 percent said they express themselves on school-related issues and 40.4 percent speak up on family issues.
The results showed that 11.2 percent fewer students in grades seven and eight than in grades five and six are bold enough to express themselves, which might imply that students meet more obstructions to expressing themselves as they get older, the foundation said.
Yesterday, the foundation held a youth summit at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei. The summit featured several youth representatives, along with Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lee Li-feng (李麗芬), New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators Alicia Wang (王育敏) and Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安), and officials from various ministries.
Children were invited to question the officials on various youth-related policies and laws.
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