School committees must be improved, Control Yuan says
The majority of committee members are school staff, and the opinions of other members are overlooked when disagreements occur
Improvements should be made to auditing and appraisal committees at the nation’s schools to better protect the rights of students, two Control Yuan members said yesterday.
The committees handle cases involving complaints about gender inequality in schools, as well as the use of corporal punishment against students, but the majority of committee members are school staff, which makes it difficult for committee members from outside the school to play a significant role, Control Yuan members Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) and Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said.
Students who have been victims of corporal punishment or discrimination are also excluded from the committees’ deliberations, which is a breach of their rights to express their views, the Control Yuan members said.
The Ministry of Education should use Children’s Day, which was yesterday, as an opportunity to make improvements, they said.
Citing an example of a case where a student’s rights were breached, Tsai and Tien said that a student surnamed Chia (甲) at Shi-Yuan Senior High School in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯) was forced by a teacher surnamed Chen (陳) to kneel for hours, and to hold heavy wooden boards and water pipes as a form of corporal punishment in 2017.
The student was also subjected to personal insults that made reference to his genitals, they said, adding that the psychological impact of the abuse caused the student to miss several classes. Read More…
