Energy-saving posters draw teachers’ ire
By Jonathan Chin / Staff writer, with CNA
The National Teachers’ Association yesterday demanded that the government recall manga-style posters about electricity conservation from elementary and junior-high schools over concerns about their portrayal of “intimate interaction.”
The Energy Administration’s public information poster consists of three panels, with each showing a character pinning another against a wall and whispering an electricity-saving tip in their ear.
The association said in a statement that it had no issue with the agency’s effort to reduce energy waste, but the artwork was inappropriate for the intended audience.
An educational poster about energy conservation.
Photo courtesy of the National Teachers’ Association
The pose struck by the characters in the poster was “provocative and intimate,” and inspired by a manga trope that has sexual connotations, it said.
The eyes of the students would more likely be drawn to the depiction of intimacy instead of the public service message, the association said.
The government should not treat public information posters displayed at schools as for-profit commercial advertisements in public spaces aimed at a general audience, it said.
The government should have checked the content of the posters, and ensured that they were safe and appropriate for minors before ordering teachers to put them up in places with high foot traffic on campus, it said.
“A school is a place of education, not a free bulletin board for government agencies to pin their advertisements,” association chairman Yeh Ching-chi (葉青?) said.
Multiple government agencies have been bothering teachers with their public information campaigns, demanding that educators put up posters, take pictures of the posters and provide written reports on the material’s impact, he said.
These reports are sometimes detailed and require educators to estimate the number of students who have seen the posters, Yeh said.
Such demands come from public functionaries who want to boost their performance indicators without doing the footwork, he said.
Schools are willing to assist the government in educating the public about important matters, but government agencies do not have an unlimited mandate to treat teachers as part of their staff to command, he said.
In response, the Energy Administration said the poster used manga-style artwork to attract attention, as the general public would likely find energy savings an overly serious topic.
However, it said it would reflect on criticism that the posters were unsuitable for minors and adjusts its public information campaign.
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