Some pushback, in certain counties, against the MOE’s revised guidelines for suspending classes announced earlier this week:
Summary
Taipei, April 13 (CNA) The Ministry of Education (MOE) said Wednesday it would consider revising standards updated on Tuesday for suspending in-person school classes as a result of COVID-19 exposures, following criticism from some local governments that they were insufficiently strict.
The comments come just one day after Education Minister Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) unveiled new guidelines under which a full suspension would only be ordered if over one-third or more than 10 classes were made remote.
Until Tuesday, central government guidelines had required that all in-person classes at schools of senior high school level or below be suspended for at least 10 days if two or more classes had to go remote following the exposure of staff or students to COVID-19.
While some localities, including Taipei, New Taipei, and Kaohsiung, expressed a willingness to comply with the standards unveiled Tuesday, others, such as Taoyuan and Taichung, adopted a wait-and-see approach, saying they would base their decision on local conditions and feedback from parents and educators.
In Yunlin, County Magistrate Chang Li-shan (張麗善) said her government would retain separate standards for elementary schools, as children under the age of 12 in Taiwan were not yet eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines, putting them at a higher risk.
Elementary schools in Yunlin County will continue imposing 1-3 day suspensions at a class level if one student or teacher is exposed to COVID-19, and, at a school level, if two or more people are exposed, she said.
As of Wednesday, Nantou and Kinmen counties have also said they would maintain their original guidelines for suspending in-person elementary school classes, while Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said the standards for kids in that age group should be “stricter.”
The opposition Kuomintang (KMT) also came out against the new guidelines, accusing the government of adopting a one-size-fits-all policy on an issue that would be better left for local governments to decide.
The government can’t just “look at everything from [the perspective of] Taipei”, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said at a party meeting, noting that the policy’s focus on classes did not fit the reality of many smaller schools, which might have mixed classes or a single large class.
Meanwhile, KMT caucus whip Tseng Ming-chung (曾銘宗) argued that there should be a separate policy for children under the age of 12, as they have not yet been able to get vaccinated.
Following the criticism, Pan attempted Wednesday to justify the changes, saying the government also had to give consideration to students’ right to an education and the difficulties that class suspensions create for parents.
But he also vowed to continue collecting feedback and conduct rolling reviews of the policy.
In the meantime, the MOE will set up a response team to work with local authorities to resolve any issues they encounter when implementing the new guidelines, Pan said.
As of Tuesday, there were 237 schools in 18 counties and cities partially or fully holding classes online, including 38 pre-schools, 92 elementary schools, 30 junior high schools, 37 senior high schools, and 40 tertiary education institutions, according to MOE data.
(By Wang Yang-yu, Chen Chih-chung and Matthew Mazzetta)
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