Taiwan’s education ministry defines bullying as persistent behaviour that intentionally demeans, excludes, harasses or teases another person. - AFP
TAIPEI: For months before his suicide in February 2023, a Taiwanese high school student was regularly singled out in class for intrusive body searches and bag checks.
The 16-year-old was also publicly vilified as “trash” and more than once, was forced to take the blame for the wrongdoing of his peers.
The culprits here? Not his classmates, but his teachers at Fengyuan Senior High School.
In February 2024, the school in Taichung, central Taiwan, admitted this in a surprising reversal of its previous findings the year before.
Reportedly, school faculty members began targeting the teen after discovering that he had brought a can of beer to school once.
The school’s director of student affairs was handed a one-year suspension, while its chief military instructor – school-stationed military personnel akin to discipline masters – was removed from his post. Two other staff members involved resigned.
The case, which has dominated headlines, comes amid a spike in cases of teachers victimising students, according to data recently released by the Ministry of Education.
It also reflects the challenges in dealing with such cases, which are mainly handled internally and may not be addressed with objectivity, experts say.
“There are very clear systems in place to handle what we call ‘teacher-to-student’ bullying in Taiwan, but they’re very complicated and are imperfect,” said Chiu Ching-hui, head of research at Taiwanese non-profit Child Welfare League Foundation.
“Even though it is a requirement for investigation committees to include independent voices, they are outnumbered by people from the school, so there may be cases of faculty protecting faculty,” she added.
According to Taiwanese regulations, each school must form a committee to handle and review every case of bullying within three days of it being reported, whether a student or teacher is the perpetrator.
This committee is convened by the school principal and must be made up of at least one member each from the teaching staff, school administration, parent’s association, and an independent expert or scholar.
If this committee deems the case to be bullying, it initiates further investigations, which could extend for several more months. The final report is handed over to the local education bureau, which decides on an appropriate penalty if necessary, such as suspension or dismissal.
“Even some of the independent voices in these investigative committees may feel pressure about going too hard on the accused, because the professional teaching community is very small,” said Chiu.
In the case of the Taichung student, two previous investigation reports submitted the year before said that the school officials had conducted “improper discipline” but their behaviour did not amount to bullying.
Just 3 per cent of the 600 cases of teachers bullying students in 2023 were confirmed and investigated. In 2020, when the education ministry first reported such figures, none of the 58 reported cases were confirmed and investigated.
A reason for the low number of cases being confirmed is the difficulty to classify a case as bullying, owing to differences in values.
Taiwan’s education ministry defines bullying as persistent behaviour that intentionally demeans, excludes, harasses or teases another person. This creates a hostile or unfriendly environment which causes mental, physical or emotional damage.
Chiu said: “The tricky part here is intention. Teachers can say that they had no intention to harm the student, and that they were only doing it for the good of the students.”
School bullying researcher Chen Li-ming, an associate professor at the National Sun Yat-sen University’s Centre for Teacher Education, said: “Some of the reported cases can be dismissed because they don’t amount to bullying – they could be just grievances from angry students who want to get back at their teachers somehow.
“But for the cases that turn out to be true, then the bigger question is, why are they allowed to happen at all?”
Prof Chen said that a deep-seated culture of reverence and respect for teachers may be a factor, although this culture is gradually changing among younger parents, who are more open to questioning their authority.
“For a long time, parents would respect teachers to the point where nothing they do is wrong. There has always been a general sense of trust in teachers that they’re simply doing what they must to discipline children,” he said.
The infamous 2021 incident of a Taiwanese judo coach slamming a seven-year-old to the ground nearly 30 times times in view of other adults, including the boy’s uncle, demonstrates this.
Despite the boy screaming in pain and vomiting at one point, the coach did not stop; the adults did not speak up either.
The boy suffered severe brain haemorrhaging and died two months later.
As for the Taichung student, his father confessed that he did not believe his son’s version of events in the beginning.
His father, who was not named when speaking to Taiwanese media outlet The Reporter in April 2023, said: “I nagged at my son to be a better student... From then on, our father-son relationship became tense, and he thought I was siding with the school.”
In the wake of the media blitz surrounding the Taichung incident, the government has promised to review regulations.
Civil society groups, including Chiu’s, have been meeting government officials to discuss potential amendments, including the possibility of future investigations being done only by people appointed by the Education Ministry – and not the school involved – to avoid any conflict of interest.
However, Prof Chen said that amending regulations is just one part of the solution.
“There needs to be more resources dedicated to training teachers on what’s right and what’s wrong when it comes to discipline,” he said.
“Some teachers genuinely don’t understand that what they’re doing amounts to bullying. Others even think that humiliating a student can push them to study better. More workshops to raise teacher professionalism is more crucial here.” - The Straits Times/ANN
