A local charity on Monday urged the public to provide more educational resources for disadvantaged children and young people in Taiwan, citing a poll showing that many of them did not get enough help with their schoolwork.
Fifty-six percent of the respondents in a recent poll said they had no one at home to help them with their homework or had not received such assistance when they had been students, said the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families, which released the poll results.
Moreover, 73 percent said it was difficult for their families to pay to send them to after-school classes, while 70 percent predicted that the poor financial conditions of their families would limit their futures.
“The lack of educational resources could be one of the reasons why some of these children are doing less well academically,” charity research director Wei Chi-li said.
She called on university students to help her charity by devoting at least three hours every week to offering after-school tutoring for the country’s disadvantaged children and young adults.
She also urged cram schools and after-school study centers to offer discounts for underprivileged students and said the government should open more after-school classes in elementary, junior and senior-high schools for such students.
The poll, conducted over a period of two years between 2009 and last year, surveyed 4,774 people between the ages of seven and 25 from disadvantaged families funded by the charity.
It was the second such survey conducted by the charity after it released the first in 2009.
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