Recently in Taipei, a one-year-old child allegedly died from abuse under the care of an in-home childcare provider. To prevent such things from happening again, the Ministry of Health and Welfare proposed increasing home visitations by social workers. However, this would not solve the problem.
Social workers staged a rally in front of the ministry and demanded that the proposal be revoked. A constant labor shortage, that social workers are often overworked and low pay are the issues that need to be addressed.
Newly graduated social workers are quite enthusiastic about, and committed to, their jobs. Their passion and dedication are palpable during job interviews.
However, once they start working, they realize that it is difficult to apply what they have learned in schools to actual situations. The fundamental reason is that in Taiwan, departments of social work focus more on theory than practice, and most faculty members do not have practical experience.
As a result, their classes are seriously detached from reality. Even though these departments arrange internship programs, students might still struggle to handle actual situations when they start working.
Some say that after graduation, students can learn from experience in their workplace and eventually obtain the practical knowledge needed for reality.
The problem is that these students face a work environment full of risks as soon as they become social workers.
They also have to work long hours every day.
It is a highly stressful job and social workers are under pressure most of the time, so a high turnover rate is inevitable.
More often than not, before young social workers have accumulated enough experience, they lose their passion while thinking about quitting their jobs.
Departments of social work should focus more on practical training. More classes that help students apply theory to reality should be offered and those with practical knowledge should be hired. Teaching materials should also be revised if necessary.
The point is to highlight the practical aspect of social work.
In class, case studies and tasks from real-life situations should be discussed. This way, young social workers could be more prepared and better trained before they embark on their careers. The gap between theory and practice must be avoided.
Yeh Yu-cheng is a secretary at the Pingtung Public Health Bureau.
Translated by Emma Liu
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Art and cultural events are key for a city’s cultivation of soft power and international image, and how politicians engage with them often defines their success. Representative to Austria Liu Suan-yung’s (劉玄詠) conducting performance and Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen’s (盧秀燕) show of drumming and the Tainan Jazz Festival demonstrate different outcomes when politics meet culture. While a thoughtful and professional engagement can heighten an event’s status and cultural value, indulging in political theater runs the risk of undermining trust and its reception. During a National Day reception celebration in Austria on Oct. 8, Liu, who was formerly director of the
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
Taiwan’s labor force participation rate among people aged 65 or older was only 9.9 percent for 2023 — far lower than in other advanced countries, Ministry of Labor data showed. The rate is 38.3 percent in South Korea, 25.7 percent in Japan and 31.5 percent in Singapore. On the surface, it might look good that more older adults in Taiwan can retire, but in reality, it reflects policies that make it difficult for elderly people to participate in the labor market. Most workplaces lack age-friendly environments, and few offer retraining programs or flexible job arrangements for employees older than 55. As
RSS