In February, a student at Taichung Municipal Feng Yuan Senior High School killed himself, allegedly after long-term and collective bullying by school officials. Seven of those officials have been reassigned to another school by the Taichung Education Bureau, while the school’s director of student affairs was suspended.
Many consider the school’s investigation and report on the suicide a farce. First, it concluded that the school officials’ counseling and disciplining of the student did not constitute bullying. The report also included a questionable survey, in which five students were chosen from each class — but not from the class of the student who died — to answer whether the discipline was reasonable.
Misconduct by the student affairs director should have been considered a serious matter, but he only received a demerit from the school.
The bureau said that the report and the punishment for the school officials were unacceptable and inappropriate.
On Friday, a professional review committee was organized to review the report and the actions of the student affairs director. It determined that the conduct of the director contravened Article 18 of the Teachers’ Act (教師法) and they should be penalized in accordance with the regulation.
The committee said the director should receive a one-year suspension.
However, the Humanistic Education Foundation said that a suspension was insufficient. After a year, the director would be able to return to the school without facing any supervision or assessment.
Dismissal of the director would be a more appropriate way to handle the issue, as they would then have to compete with other candidates when seeking a new teaching position, and pass a screening process before they could be hired.
What is more perplexing is that the school’s report confirmed that “improper discipline” had occurred, but that the student had not been singled out. Therefore, the implication of the report is that students at Taichung Municipal Feng Yuan Senior High School are often subjected to demerits, body searches, intimidation, threats and discriminatory verbal abuse by school officials.
Even for a mentally mature adult with abundant social experience, this could be too much to handle. How would a high-school student be able to handle it? Does anyone believe the student killed himself simply out of the blue?
Moreover, on Thursday, Taichung Deputy Mayor Alicia Wang (王育敏) said that the city government would not accept the school’s report and demanded that it explain why the case was not considered bullying. Soon after, the school suspended the director for a year. This came as rapidly as thunder, and many wondered if the whole thing had been planned.
Under Article 3 of the Ministry of Education’s Regulations Governing Prevention and Control of Bullying on Campuses (校園霸凌防制準則), bullying is defined as any situation in which a person or group of people use speech, writing, images, signs, physical gestures, electronic communication or other means to directly or indirectly belittle, exclude, mistreat, harass or tease another person. The target of this harassment would be in a hostile and unfriendly environment, experiencing psychological, physical or financial harm, and could not safely study and participate in school activities.
What happened to the student at Taichung Municipal Feng Yuan Senior High School is extremely unfortunate. If the student’s suicide is considered unrelated to bullying, the ministry and other agencies should redefine “bullying.”
Chang Huey-por is a former president of National Changhua University of Education.
Translated by Emma Liu
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
US President Donald Trump on Monday gave his inauguration speech. Although mainly directed at US citizens, his words were subject to global scrutiny by leaders and others wanting to understand more about his intentions for his second term. The US has been Taiwan’s strongest ally since the end of World War II and Trump’s first term brought many welcome advances in Taiwan-US ties. Still, many Taiwanese are concerned about what Trump’s second term will mean for the nation, especially after comments he made concerning Taiwan’s national defense and semiconductor industry. During Monday’s address, Trump said that the US “will once again consider
RSS