In less than a week, sad and regretful stories of teachers committing suicide were reported one after another in primary and secondary schools. The cross-border Xingtan tragedy is not only sad, but also highlights that the high-pressure campus environment is an unexploded bomb that urgently needs to be dismantled. On October 30, the Ministry of Education announced the "Guidelines for the Prevention of Illegal Infringements in the Workplace of Schools and Educational Care Service Institutions at All Levels", which undoubtedly demonstrated the official determination to face up to the occupational safety crisis in schools.
The Ministry of Education recently developed the "Guidelines for the Prevention of Unlawful Infringements in the Workplace of Schools and Educational Care Service Institutions at All Levels" and announced them on October 30. (File photo) To be fair, this guideline for the first time includes explicit protection of teachers’ “offline rights” during non-attendance time, and clearly recognizes that educational personnel have the attributes of workers in urgent need of protection when facing parent-teacher conflicts and external violence. As far as the history of the development of labor rights in Taiwan’s campuses is concerned, this is an indicator of progress with profound historical significance and deserves applause from the society and recognition from the religious organizations.
However, in order for the original intention of this good policy to truly protect the front line, the system design must not be only half-formed.
First of all, a closer look at the guidelines reveals that when dealing with external infringements, flexible terms such as "depending on the type and severity of the case" and "when necessary" are still used. In real teaching situations, if there is no hard-and-fast rule that "the school, as the employer, must compulsorily intervene or even sue on behalf of others," these vague spaces can easily become a talisman for some campus bureaucrats to choose to calm down the trouble when they encounter some parents who are less rational. Grassroots teachers may still have to face malicious and abusive lawsuits alone.
Secondly, when it comes to practicing campus democracy, the final version of the guidelines has deleted the words "schools and trade unions and other organizations" in the original draft, which shows that there is still a lack of progress in terms of labor rights protection. Teacher organizations are the only legal line of defense for grassroots labor rights in on-site education practice. Preventing workplace bullying is a core labor-management issue. If teachers’ union representatives are not explicitly included in the risk assessment and investigation mechanism, and it relies solely on the internal operations of the administrative system, it will be difficult to eliminate black-box concerns, let alone build a credible protection network.
Teachers who hold administrative positions have long been caught between the endless complaints from parents and the tedious tasks assigned by superiors, and their bodies and minds have already been pushed to the limit. We hope that the Ministry of Education and local governments can continue the progressive value of this guideline and take the lead in investing substantial resources such as police and legal support, so as to prevent violence prevention and control from becoming a mere burden of paperwork.
The All-China Federation of Education affirms the Ministry of Education’s courage to face up to the risks in the teachers’ workplace, and hopes that the government will further improve the teacher organization supervision mechanism so that the goodwill of friendly schools can truly catch up with the hard-working education personnel on the front line.
The Ministry of Education exempted teachers from immediate callbacks after work, and the All-China Education Federation called for strengthening the protection mechanism. (File photo) (The author is the deputy director of the Policy Department of the General Education Bureau)
