◎ Yang Zhiqiang
The Junior High School Entrance Examination will be held on May 16th and 17th. Last week was a critical period for candidates to make their final sprint and for schools to prepare for the examination. However, Hualien County staged a scene of overreaching and political interference in education at a critical moment. You Shuzhen, a Kuomintang candidate for Hualien County Magistrate and current Ji'an Township Magistrate, went so far as to send "Bao Zhongyu" to all candidates in the county, asking principals and directors of middle schools from various countries in Hualien County to go to the Ji'an Township Office in person to collect it.
The public office has no administrative authority over schools outside its jurisdiction.
You Shuzhen, the mayor of Ji'an Township, sent blessings for the junior high school entrance examination to all junior high school students in Hualien, and was questioned for violating administrative neutrality. (Provided by Ji'an Township Office) According to local autonomy regulations, the township office has no administrative control over schools outside its jurisdiction. Nowadays, the Ji'an Township Office has the power to mobilize the county's education administrators beyond its authority, leaving principals and directors of junior high schools in remote rural areas that require half a day's drive, such as Fuli and Fengbin, to travel and travel, seriously interfering with the intensive school operations of each school before the exam. Such unbridled administrative arrogance and generosity of public resources are actually a rally to pave the way for the election of specific candidates.
Hualien people are no stranger to the bad habit of trampling on the education profession and public sector ethics. In the past, when Fu Kunqi was the county magistrate, he had mobilized all the county's public education personnel to participate in the "Various Religions to Worship Heaven and Pray for Blessings" activities. Under the authoritarian atmosphere, the grassroots remained silent for many years, fearing that failure to cooperate would directly affect the year-end assessment and future principal selection. Only in 2018, when Fu Kunqi was imprisoned due to the case, the then acting county magistrate Cai Bizhong canceled the ruling and allocated millions of dollars in saved funds directly to various religious groups to handle independently, reducing the administrative burden on public education personnel at the time.
Please read on...
Who treats the principal and director of a junior high school as an attendant?
Back then, the county magistrate kidnapped the school, but now the township magistrate has been "promoted" to guide the entire county. He has blatantly extended his political hand into the school, treating the principal and director as if they were waiting for him. It is like an enhanced version of "Hualien King 2.0". The outrageous and formal hair show not only caused parents to worry about sacrificing students' right to education, but also completely undermined the bottom line of "withdrawing politics from campus."
The two-day junior high school entrance examination ended on the 17th, and the candidates and their parents walked out of the examination room. (Provided by the Education Department of Hualien County Government) Campus should be a holy place for cultivating independent thinking. How can it be allowed to become a cash machine for politicians to manipulate "clientism"? Teacher organizations are working hard to promote administrative reductions and hope to return professional autonomy to the grassroots. However, the Kuomintang Hualien candidate openly trampled on the neutrality of campus administration. Sincere blessings do not need to be proven through high-profile cross-district mobilization. Only by returning to the essence of "administrative support for teaching" and Hualien villagers working together to defend the county's teachers and students from rejecting non-teaching-related activities assigned by politicians, and maintaining neutrality between education and administration, can we truly return to campus.
(The author is a social studies teacher)
