The Awakening Foundation yesterday criticized the government’s plan to offer more than NT$30 billion (US$1 billion) in subsidies to private kindergartens, saying the money could build and fund almost 3,000 public childcare centers and non-profit kindergartens, which would benefit more than 310,000 children.
With Premier William Lai (賴清德) today scheduled to announce the details of a policy to address the nation’s dwindling birthrate, the foundation called on the government to review its plan to subsidize private kindergartens, calling it a waste of money.
The Executive Yuan has previously said it would offer annual subsidies to private kindergartens that agree to raise the staring salaries of their teachers to NT$29,000 as part of a plan to lower the tuition fees at such schools, said foundation board member Hung Hui-fen (洪慧芬), a Soochow University Department of Social Work associate professor.
The government would give each private kindergarten approximately the average cost of a non-profit kindergarten — namely one funded by government and run by a non-profit organization — plus 5 percent profit, she said, adding that the nationwide policy would require an estimated NT$30 billion per year.
“Lai had said that the plan to subsidize private kindergartens was made because the speed at which public and non-profit kindergartens are being built cannot meet the nation’s growing need for childcare services and preschools. However, if that is true, why not allocate more money to building them or even transform some private kindergartens to non-profit ones?” foundation policy director Chyn Yu-rung (覃玉蓉) said.
Private kindergartens are known for overworking their employees and their quality is often questionable, she said.
Only public and non-profit kindergartens, which are regularly reviewed to meet strict government standards, can be trusted for the quality of their childcare service, their pricing and work conditions, she added.
“The nation has been dealing with a lack of public childcare services and their uneven distribution for more than 20 years,” Alliance of Educare Trade Unions director Kuo Ming-hsu (郭明旭) said.
Subsidizing private kindergartens would not solve any problems, as they would only be opened in profitable locations, he said.
“Of all the nation’s districts and townships, 43 have no private kindergartens — and they are not necessarily what people typically consider ‘remote areas,’” he said.
Offering subsidies to private kindergartens would not help families living in those areas, nor would it improve the quality of those kindergartens or increase birthrate, he said.
The NT$30 billion could be better spent by building public childcare centers and non-profit kindergartens, Hung said.
The foundation has misunderstood the policy, Executive Yuan spokesman Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said yesterday.
The actual details would be announced at a news conference at the Executive Yuan today, Hsu said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
China’s newest Type-076 amphibious assault ship has two strengths and weaknesses, wrote a Taiwanese defense expert, adding that further observations of its capabilities are warranted. Jiang Hsin-biao (江炘杓), an assistant researcher at the National Defense and Security Research, made the comments in a report recently published by the institute about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military and political development. China christened its new assault ship Sichuan in a ceremony on Dec. 27 last year at Shanghai’s Hudong Shipyard, China’s Xinhua news agency reported. “The vessel, described as the world’s largest amphibious assault ship by the [US think tank] Center for Strategic and International
RSS