Taipei City councilors yesterday accused public schools in the city of fabricating excuses to charge students extra fees, urging the Education Department to establish a fee-charging system and make expense records public.As part of the nation's compulsory education, public elementary and junior high school students enjoy tuition-free education. However, it has been a customary practice for many schools and parent-teacher associations (PTAs) to charge students fees for various purposes, such as class administration, protection, extracurricular activities and even restroom maintenance, Independent Councilor Chen Chien-ming (陳建銘) said.
VARYING FEES
Statistics provided by the department showed that the fees different public schools and PTAs charge every semester varied from NT$120 to more than NT$20,000. Autonomous regulations in Taipei City allow schools and PTAs to charge fees, but schools are not required to make the expense records public.
“Some of the fees, such as snack fees, are necessary, but a majority of the fees are charged without a clear explanation. Do you think parents can refuse to pay and let their kids feel the pressure?” Chen told a press conference at Taipei City Council.
Democratic Progressive Party Councilor Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) said that except for some required fees, such as those for lunch or transportation, other fees should be classified as donations with parents given the option of paying or not.
Most schools, however, fail to inform parents about their options and just hand a notice to students asking them to give a certain amount of money, she said.
TASK FORCE
In response, Liang Yong-fei (梁永斐), a division chief at the department, acknowledged that autonomous regulations did not address the issue of school fees clearly enough and promised to tighten the regulations before the next school semester begins next year.
Liang said the department would form a special task force to handle the issue and would ask schools to post their fee records on their Web sites starting next semester.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back
PROXIMITY: Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location, the Executive Yuan official said Taiwan plans to boost cooperation with the Czech Republic in semiconductor development due to Prague’s pivotal role in the European IC industry, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said. With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) building a wafer fab in the German city of Dresden, a Germany-Czech Republic-Poland “silicon triangle” is forming, Kung said in a media interview on the weekend after returning from a visit to Prague. “Prague is closer to Dresden than Berlin is, so Taiwanese firms are expected to take advantage of the Czech capital’s location,” he said. “Taiwan and Prague have already launched direct flights and it is