Tainan First Senior High School on Wednesday is to inaugurate its first political party, the TNFSH Full-Sugarism Party, to help support students’ democratic literacy.
Freshman Tsai Wei-po (蔡偉柏), a founding member of the new group, said the party was created to bring attention to student self-governance, and to supervise the administration and student association.
“One voice is easy to ignore,” Tsai was quoted as saying by the Chinese-language United Daily News on Friday. “A group has more influence.”
Photo: Liu Wan-chun, Taipei Times
The party has 33 members, but with more than 70 applications pending, out of a student population of 2,101, organizers said, adding that a chairperson and other officials would be appointed during Wednesday’s ceremony.
School principal Liao Tsai-ku (廖財固) on Saturday said the school respects students’ pursuit of democratic literacy and would provide positive guidance.
The TNFSH Full-Sugarism Party charter has seven main objectives, which range from serious to silly.
The party said it would seek to improve the welfare of the entire student body, construct a philosophy of equality within the school and advance students’ civic literacy.
It also intends to use memes to promote student self-governance, as well as the concept of “full sugarism.”
Referring to a well-known joke that Kaohsiung Senior High School (KSHS) governs southern Taiwan under the “Great KSHS Kingdom,” the TNFSH Full-Sugarism Party vowed to resist annexation by the school.
Lastly, the party promised to connect the all-boys school to Tainan Girls’ Senior High School through an underground tunnel.
The Senior High School Education Act (高級中等教育法) stipulates that schools must “guide students to organize self-governing organizations,” which means that students can establish self-governance organizations, but not many students know about this right, Tsai said.
The party founders decided that some humorous goals would help draw attention to the party and inspire other schools to create their own parties, Tsai added.
“Some people might think that we are just ‘kids playing at politics’ or that this has nothing to do with academics, but politics is a part of life,” the freshman said.
Students creating political parties should not be looked upon too seriously or negatively, he said.
Discussing such issues can help “implant democratic literacy in students,” Tsai added.
Although some people have joked that the new party would make the school a “one-party state,” Tsai said he backed the formation of other parties.
“It would give us a chance to analyze all kinds of issues,” he told the newspaper.
The Full-Sugarism Party is not the first student party in Taiwan.
The Taichung First Senior High School student council last year became the first in the nation to pass a “student political party act.”
Three parties were established, although one is at risk of dissolution after it failed to nominate any candidates for party office.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
RSS