Last year was Taiwan’s warmest on record, in keeping with a trend since the turn of the century, and given the high temperatures last month, this year appears well on track to set another record. It is no surprise that in the past few weeks the National Federation of Teachers’ Unions, parents, lawmakers and others have been pushing for the government to ensure that air-conditioners are installed in all elementary and junior-high school classrooms nationwide.
The issue is a hot topic, with President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) government under immense pressure to promptly take action, but cooler heads need to prevail, to not only ensure that public resources are not wasted, but that the proposed solutions do not exacerbate Taiwan’s power-generation, electricity- consumption and pollution problems.
While complaints about the effects of hot classrooms and school facilities on students’ learning, not to mention their health, are nothing new, they have been growing louder in the past few years alongside rising temperatures.
The federation in 2018 called on the government to make sure every classroom in the nation had air-conditioning. Last year, lawmakers met with school authorities, parents and Ministry of Education officials to press the issue, with one Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmaker this week recounting advice given by ministry officials: Some schools would have to make do with fans.
Infrastructure spending on public schools has largely been the remit of municipal and county authorities, but given the urban-rural divide, and the wealth gap between special municipalities, cities and townships, it is clear that the central government is needed as a leveler of resources and funding, and not just when it comes to air-conditioning.
On Saturday last week, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) announced that the central government would have air-conditioners installed in every public elementary and junior-high school classroom within two years, and details of the plan have been dripping out, like from a leaking air-conditioner, ever since.
The ministry said the project is expected to cost NT$32.3 billion (US$1.09 billion), with the Executive Yuan to provide 70 to 90 percent of the funding, mostly coming from Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program funds, while local government would provide the rest.
Su on Thursday said that a task force would be established with the aim of having the logistics sorted out by the end of summer and installation beginning next year so that all classrooms would have air- conditioning before the summer of 2022.
However, in the administration’s rush to be seen taking action — by slapping an air-conditioner into every classroom — no one appears to have asked if that is actually the best solution, either financially or, perhaps more importantly, environmentally.
Far too many of the nation’s schools, be they in urban, rural or mountainous areas, are concrete wastelands, with the luckier ones having a few trees on campus, and air-conditioning — if available — in the form of window units, not central systems.
Instead of focusing on buying more individual air-conditioners, which consume vast amounts of electricity and emit heat to the outside, why not prioritize green design solutions, while planning on centralized air-conditioning systems?
Some leading environmentalists have suggested installing plant walls on campuses to help cool buildings, improving building ventilation, tearing up concrete sidewalks and courtyards to install permeable pavements and lawns, planting more trees and other plants, installing water sprayers and solar arrays, as well as gardens and green spaces on school rooftops. Thinking outside the box of window-unit air- conditioners makes sense, financially and in terms of sustainability, not just over the next two years, but for many years to come.
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