A meeting between the six special municipalities is to be convened next week to discuss campus safety, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday, in response to the death of a junior-high student in New Taipei City who was stabbed several times with a switchblade by a schoolmate on Monday.
A ninth-grade male student reportedly stabbed the victim in the neck and chest after a female classmate complained to him about the way the other student had spoken to her.
The student died after efforts to resuscitate him failed late on Tuesday, the New Taipei City Department of Education said.
Photo copied by Wu Jen-chieh, Taipei Times
The incident started during noon break on Monday, when the female student went to an adjacent classroom to chat with a friend, but ended up arguing with a male student who asked her to leave.
The girl reportedly left in anger and asked the male classmate to confront the other student.
After they returned to the neighboring classroom, the two male students started to argue which escalated into a physical altercation, the girl’s classmate pulled out a switchblade and stabbed the other student in the neck and chest several times, leaving him with no vital signs.
The injured student was rushed to Far Eastern Memorial Hospital, where his heartbeat was initially restored following emergency treatment, but the surgery failed and the student died on Tuesday night, the department confirmed on Wednesday.
After hearing the case, a juvenile court on Tuesday ruled that the assailant should be placed in custody and the female student be released into the custody of a legal guardian.
According to local media reports, the stabber had already had multiple run-ins with the law for crimes including causing bodily harm, and had only recently been released from a juvenile detention center.
Writing on Facebook yesterday, Tsai expressed her condolences to the family of the victim.
A meeting is to be held next week among the nation’s six special municipalities to discuss ways to improve campus safety, including measures for reintroducing juvenile offenders and counseling, she added.
A national education action alliance in a statement on Wednesday said that the incident highlights a broader failure to provide effective guidance for at-risk students.
At-risk students often come from dysfunctional family backgrounds, have difficulty adapting to a school environment and in some cases, pose a threat to school safety, the alliance said, urging the government to provide alternative education programs specifically tailored to meet the needs of these students.
The Ministry of Education in a statement on Wednesday expressed regret over the incident and promised to review the nation’s alternative education system to address the educational needs of students that cannot be met in regular schools.
Minister of Education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) yesterday also said that his ministry was planning to review the evaluation procedures and guidance services for students returning to school from the juvenile justice system.
Meanwhile, as rumors circulated online that the boy who committed the stabbing routinely brought a knife to school, a national teachers’ union on Wednesday said that ministry rules make even simple interventions, such as searching a student’s backpack, unfeasible.
According to the ministry’s guidelines, students’ private belongings can only be searched if there is proof or probable cause that they have committed a crime or possess prohibited items.
If a search is conducted, there must be at least two teachers, student representatives or parents present, and the entire process must be filmed, the guidelines state.
However, Humanistic Education Foundation director Feng Chiao-lan (馮喬蘭) said that even conducting universal bag searches at schools would not help prevent violence.
Conflicts on campus typically stem from internal factors or problems in a person’s behavior, under which circumstances any item can be used as a weapon, Feng said in a video provided to the media yesterday.
For that reason, prevention efforts should also focus on addressing students’ emotions and behavior, such as ensuring that there is sufficient funding for school counseling centers and other forms of support, Feng said.
Additional reporting by Chen Yun
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