The presidential candidates of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday weighed in on the death of a ninth-grade student in New Taipei City on Wednesday, who was reportedly stabbed in the neck and chest several times during a quarrel with a fellow student on Monday.
“The Ministry of Education and other government agencies are providing assistance to the family of the student who was killed,” Vice President William Lai (賴清德), the DPP’s candidate, wrote on Facebook.
“They are also helping the students and teachers who witnessed the incident to mitigate any symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder,” Lai added.
Photo: Huang Tzu-yang, Taipei Times
“The incident also has exposed the problem of school bullying, and we must try to prevent similar tragedies from happening again,” he said.
Lai said that if he is elected, he would thoroughly implement a three-tier counseling system that extends to elementary-school students by proposing an amendment to the Student Guidance and Counseling Act (學生輔導法).
The government would offer more counseling to high-risk families, train more counselors to assist school administrators and teachers to help students with problems, and establish a bridging mechanism between counseling and legal disciplinary services, he said.
“School bullying has become a global issue and the government should devote more resources to tackling it at the source,” he said. “My administration would ensure that students learn to respect and acknowledge differences in others.”
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜), the KMT’s candidate, said that many people, including the family of the student who died, have called for a comprehensive review of the Juvenile Justice Act (少年事件處理法) following the incident, with a focus on the age of accountability, discipline and criminal liability of juveniles involved in major crimes.
“As school bullying is highly correlated with school violence, Japan promulgated the Act for the Promotion of Measures to Prevent Bullying,” Hou wrote on Facebook. “Taiwan should learn from the principles of that law by reinforcing moral education among students, identifying early bullying behavior, monitoring bullying online, assisting people affected by bullying, and punishing and counseling bullies.”
“School administrators can work with local police departments if they think that a school bullying incident is a criminal matter,” he said. “Bullying can be mitigated through early intervention and offering care to high-risk people.”
The government should put more resources toward recruiting counselors, and ensuring the mental and physical health of young people, he said.
The social safety net should be bolstered to prevent bullying through well-coordinated efforts among public and private agencies, Hou said.
“Security at schools is not a local issue, it is a serious issue that the nation must confront together,” he said. “Organized crime groups have begun recruiting teenagers. The government needs to impose stricter sanctions on these groups and prevent the next generation from being destroyed by criminal elements.”
New Power Party Chairwoman Claire Wang (王婉諭), whose daughter was decapitated by man in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) in 2016, said the most urgent task is that counselors at junior-high schools should care for the mental health of the family of the student who died, as well as his teachers and classmates.
“We are worried that the incident might encourage copycats,” Wang wrote on Facebook. “News media should refrain from giving overly detailed descriptions of the murder, and the public should avoid labeling specific groups.”
As a legislator, she has repeatedly warned about the counselor shortage on campuses being a loophole in the social safety net, Wang said.
“The issues of school bullying and safety have become more complicated,” she said. “Children are getting improper information from social media. This is a problem that the government, society, families and schools should resolve together.”
“Taiwan cannot afford to make changes only after multiple tragedies have occurred,” she said. “This would be too slow and too painful for families broken by tragedies.”
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Taiwan’s population last year shrank further and births continued to decline to a yearly low, the Ministry of the Interior announced today. The ministry published the 2024 population demographics statistics, highlighting record lows in births and bringing attention to Taiwan’s aging population. The nation’s population last year stood at 23,400,220, a decrease of 20,222 individuals compared to 2023. Last year, there were 134,856 births, representing a crude birth rate of 5.76 per 1,000 people, a slight decline from 2023’s 135,571 births and 5.81 crude birth rate. This decrease of 715 births resulted in a new record low per the ministry’s data. Since 2016, which saw
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
RSS