TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A private school's attempt at a name change ran into some trouble on Sunday (Dec. 27), when netizens noticed that it had posted a sign referring to itself as an "Intermational School."
On Sunday, a member of the Facebook group Tainan Breaking News Commune (台南爆料公社) posted a photo of the sign for Kuenshan International School depicted as "KU N SHAN Intermational School." The missing letter "E" between "KU" and "N" and the misspelling of "international" prompted some netizens to mock the strange signage.
During its heyday, Kuenshan Middle School was the second-largest private middle school in Tainan City. At its peak, it had reached up to 6,000 students and faculty.
However, in recent years, the school has been affected by declining birthrates and enrollment has decreased. Six years ago, there was also a dispute between the school and teachers over unpaid salaries.
After the local teacher's union sued the school's board of directors for embezzlement, enrollment dropped further, reported UDN. In June of this year, the school appointed Tai Chein (戴謙), former director of the Southern Taiwan Science Park Bureau and former President of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, to serve as the school's new principal.
The school then spent NT$25 million (US$889,000) on a comprehensive renovation and worked with Wilson School on developing an all-English language elementary school, which is expected to start enrolling students next year. At the same time, it signed a cooperation agreement with nearby Kun Shan University to provide students with a smooth path to further education upon graduation from its high school.
The school recently changed its name from Kuen Shan Middle School to Kuen Shan International School. However, the name change did not translate well into its official signage, spurring my netizens to poke fun at the spelling snafu:
"Even a few commonly used words are misspelled! I'm dumbfounded!"
"The school had been upgraded, but it needs to learn English first."
"Too international."
"International school becomes an international joke."
"Can they still recruit students with such misspellings?"
"This level of English is really international."
In response to criticism of the new sign, school officials said that it had been installed on Dec. 25 and that the spelling error had already been noticed. However, because the error was discovered on a holiday, they were unable to have it immediately corrected.
The school pledged that once the corrections have been made, the new sign will be officially unveiled. It then promised that "There will be absolutely no typos" on the new sign.
(Tainan Breaking News Commune photo)
