Childhood has become a national security crisis, and the election campaign is approaching. All camps are making policy arguments. Eleven teachers' unions, including the Taiwan Education Industry Union, issued a joint statement today stating that most of the political opinions put forward by the government and public opinion representatives are in favor of "expanding subsidies" to assist childcare. However, this approach is still difficult to fundamentally improve the predicament and increase the motivation of Chinese people to have children. They call for starting with improving the working environment and providing more support for family education, so that parents can have more time to rest and spend time with their children.
Hong Weibin, chairman of Taiwan Education Industry, said bluntly that modern parents face huge life and work pressures, and short-term "respite" and "financial subsidies" can indeed solve their urgent needs. However, the difficulty faced by many parents is not only a lack of child care resources, but also a lack of sufficient companionship time. Excessive working hours, difficulty in balancing family and work, restrictions on the use of parental leave, and insufficient family support systems are all challenges currently faced by families with children. If these structural problems cannot be improved, even if more subsidies and childcare resources are invested, it will still be difficult to truly improve the quality of family parenting and the willingness to have children.
Yang Yifei, CEO of the Taiwan Education, Industry and Education Policy Think Tank, called on the country to take the lead in creating an environment where parents and children can "coexist". This must start with fundamental reforms in the labor environment, including promoting flexible working hours and remote working mechanisms, optimizing family care leave and parental leave systems, and implementing a family-friendly workplace culture to allow parents to achieve a reasonable balance between work and family. In addition, the promotion of child-oriented policies should also take into account the perspectives of "young children's development needs" and "assistance with family education", and comprehensively consider the quantity and quality of the childcare environment.
Chen Weiyun, chairman of the Tainan City Education Industry Union, hopes that the candidates’ child care policies can break away from the mentality of “single reliance on child care” and help parents regain the time and energy to spend with their children. She emphasized that childcare services should support families rather than replace them; a truly friendly childcare policy not only helps take care of children, but also allows parents to spend time with their children. Only by making family education the most solid backing for society can we respond to the challenges of declining birthrates and education in the long term.
Eleven teachers unions including Taiwan Education Industry and Industry have jointly called for local elections to be held at the end of the year. The child care political opinions of county and city chiefs or democratic candidates should be based on "strengthening parent-child coexistence" and "deeply cultivating family education." At the same time, attention must be paid to and improve the working conditions of early childhood education sites. Only a two-pronged approach is the long-term strategy that can truly take care of Taiwan’s parenting families and reverse the dilemma of low birthrate.
