Taipei Times
Date: Jun 09, 2015
By: Rachel Lin and Chen Wei-han / Staff reporter, with staff writer
Legislators across party lines yesterday questioned the Ministry of Education over what
Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa responds to a question on school safety in the legislature yesterday. Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
they said was a poor use of the budget for education, contrasting a campus security budget of about NT$65 million (US$2.08 million) with a multibillion-dollar fund for swimming lessons, and urged the ministry to fund the establishment of a campus safety program.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said the ministry allocated NT$64.96 million for school security, to be shared between more than 3,000 schools nationwide this fiscal year, with each school receiving only about NT$19,000.
The criticism of the ministry’s budget policy comes in the wake of the murder of an eight-year-old girl at the Wenhua Elementary School in Taipei, allegedly by a man who slipped into the campus unseen.
The elementary school has only two security guards on campus and an insufficient number of surveillance cameras, Chen said, adding that schools nationwide are understaffed and ill-equipped because of poor government funding. [FULL STORY]
