Poor supervision of a school that had improper dress codes and implemented corporal punishment prompted a Control Yuan censure yesterday of the Yunlin County Department of Education.
Civic groups in February last year reported that Yuan Ming Junior High School illegally imposed corporal punishment and restrictions on hairstyles, Control Yuan member Yeh Ta-hua (葉大華) told a news conference in Taipei.
An investigation conducted by Yeh and Control Yuan member Lai Ting-ming (賴鼎銘) found that the issues were first reported to the Ministry of Education’s K-12 Education Administration in May 2020, but the Yunlin department failed to launch an investigation, she said.
Photo: CNA
The department did not order the school to revise its regulations until the ministry introduced new dress code policies on Aug. 3, 2020, Yeh said.
The department conducted an on-site inspection and found that the school required short hair for male students, contravening Article 21 of the Observations on the Notice Governing Educators’ Teaching and Punishing of Students as Defined by Schools (學校訂定教師輔導與管教學生辦法注意事項), she said.
The school also had regulations regarding underwear, socks and shoes, while the process for electing members of its dress code committee contravened the Principles for Making Regulations on Students’ Clothing and Appearance in Junior High Schools (國民中學訂定學生服裝儀容規定之原則), Yeh said.
The school advised female students to wear light-colored underwear, which might be against the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法), she said.
The department asked 60 students at the school about corporal punishment, with four saying they had received it “almost every day” and nine saying it happened to them “almost every week,” she said.
The punishments they described constituted physical or mental abuse according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, she added.
The school convened a meeting regarding the issues, but determined that they were not serious or were reasonable teaching methods, Yeh said.
The meeting concluded that the six teachers involved did not act in breach of the Teachers’ Act (教師法), she added.
Expressing doubts regarding the meeting’s conclusions, the K-12 agency ordered a follow-up meeting, which gave four of the six teachers a warning, Yeh said.
The Yunlin department was censored for its poor supervision of the school and not properly investigating the issues, she said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
TRADE-OFF: Beijing seeks to trade a bowl of tempura for a Chinese delicacy, an official said, while another said its promises were attempts to interfere in the polls The government must carefully consider the national security implications of building a bridge connecting Kinmen County and Xiamen, China, the Public Construction Commission (PCC) said yesterday. PCC Commissioner Derek Chen (陳金德), who is also a minister without portfolio, made the remarks in a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, after Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsu Fu-kuei (徐富癸) asked about China’s proposal of new infrastructure projects to further connect Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties with Xiamen. China unveiled the bridge plan, along with nine other policies for Taiwan, on Sunday, the last day of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun’s (鄭麗文) visit
RSS