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.
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
Taiwan’s passport ranked 34th in the world, with access to 141 visa-free destinations, according to the latest update to the Henley Passport Index released today. The index put together by Henley & Partners ranks 199 passports globally based on the number of destinations holders can access without a visa out of 227, and is updated monthly. The 141 visa-free destinations for Taiwanese passport holders are a slight decrease from last year, when holders had access to 145 destinations. Botswana and Columbia are among the countries that have recently ended visa-free status for Taiwanese after “bowing to pressure from the Chinese government,” the Ministry
HEALTHCARE: Following a 2022 Constitutional Court ruling, Taiwanese traveling overseas for six months would no longer be able to suspend their insurance Measures allowing people to suspend National Health Insurance (NHI) services if they plan to leave the country for six months would be abolished starting Dec. 23, NHIA Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said yesterday. The decision followed the Constitutional Court’s ruling in 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and that it would invalidate the regulation automatically unless the NHIA amended it to conform with the Constitution. The agency would amend the regulations to remove the articles and sections that allow the suspension of NHI services, and also introduce provisional clauses for those who suspended their NHI services before Dec. 23, Shih said. According to
Minister of Labor Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊) yesterday apologized after the suicide of a civil servant earlier this month and announced that a supervisor accused of workplace bullying would be demoted. On Nov. 4, a 39-year-old information analyst at the Workforce Development Agency’s (WDA) northern branch, which covers greater Taipei and Keelung, as well as Yilan, Lienchiang and Kinmen counties, was found dead in their office. WDA northern branch director Hsieh Yi-jung (謝宜容), who has been accused of involvement in workplace bullying, would be demoted to a nonsupervisory position, Ho told a news conference in Taipei. WDA Director-General Tsai Meng-liang (蔡孟良) said he would
RSS