The Ministry of Education's "School Safety Resilience 2000 - Plan to Enrich the School Security Manpower of National Junior High Schools" was officially launched today (1). It is expected to increase the number of school security manpower in junior high schools nationwide from the current 620 to 2,000 people year by year, covering 966 public and private junior high schools. The central government invests 1.2 billion yuan every year. The National Education Action Alliance issued a statement today stating that the direction of increasing front-line school security manpower is worthy of recognition, but it should not only look at "how many people are replaced", but also clarify the authority, professional training, crisis referral and policy effectiveness to prevent school security personnel from being left only to patrol and maintain order.
Wang Hanyang, chairman of the National Education Union, said that there is no contradiction between supporting the increase in school security manpower and opposing the militarization of campuses. The key lies in whether the additional 2,000 people are positioned as "education support manpower" or whether they are just an additional group of people patrolling and maintaining order. The Ministry of Education currently plans that in addition to assisting with campus safety and student affairs, school security personnel can also assist in safety maintenance, situation transition, accompanying students, contacting parents, and follow-up processing when students lose control of their emotions or behavior, or conflicts between teachers and students.
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Chung Junwei, the parent minister of the National Education Alliance, reminded that the first thing school security personnel face may be children who are in emotional, behavioral or psychological crisis, or they may be neurodiversity students such as autism and ADHD. If they lack relevant knowledge, they may misjudge children who need assistance as defiant or deliberately disobedient. Therefore, in addition to emergencies, substance abuse, bullying and school legal practices, special education, neurodiversity, trauma-informed and crisis cooling training should also be included, and "train before use" should be implemented.
The National Education Alliance proposed four inspections of "rights, training, acceptance, and evaluation", requiring a clear definition of what school security personnel can and cannot do; new recruits must complete necessary professional training before facing students; and a division of labor and referral mechanism between school security, academic affairs, counseling, special education, social affairs, health administration, and police administration should be established. The effectiveness of the policy cannot only be calculated by the number of people hired, but should disclose the personnel arrival rate, turnover rate, training completion rate, and major incident handling and referral status in each county and city.
Wang Hanyang said, "The number 2000 itself is not a policy achievement." The real achievement should be that teachers have someone to support them when they encounter an incident, and someone to take over correctly when a child is in crisis, making the campus safer. While manpower is on the road, the system should also begin to be tested.
