Mailiao Township to Build Second Kindergarten|因應人口成長 雲林麥寮擬增鄉立幼兒園

The population of Yunlin County's Mailiao Township is growing, as the township offers good social benefits. As a result, the local kindergarten has become filled to capacity. The township office worries that the resulting crowding will make infections easier to spread, thus it is working hard to build a second kindergarten.


The children at this kindergarten are currently partaking in their 30 minutes of outdoor classes a day. This is Mailiao Public Kindergarten in Yunlin County's Mailiao Township. It has an enrollment of 375 students divided into 13 classes. The kindergarten has become filled to capacity as the township's population is growing with 300 to 400 newborns every year.

Mailiao Township's public and private childcare institutions can take care of approximately 1,200 children. However, the total number of spaces we need four the four preschool classes adds up to 2,000. It's clear that as a whole there is an insufficient number of spaces.

The kindergarten says it began accepting applications for enrollment earlier in April. It has approximately 120 spaces but received so many applications that it has to draw lots. To resolve this issue, the Mailiao Township Office decided to build a second public kindergarten.

Before, the annual population increase was about 1,000, so Mailiao's population kept growing. Now, there are 48,000 residents. There aren't sufficient kindergarten spaces now. We're looking for a plot of land to build a new one behind Shalun and next to Mingli Elementary School.

The township office says while the populations of other townships are decreasing, Mailiao's is increasing because it offers good social benefits. It estimates that it can put the new kindergarten out to contract in October and begin accepting applications for 180 spaces at the end of 2021. It hopes this will resolve the shortage situation as well as offer more spacious classrooms to prevent cluster infections.



來到幼兒園，小朋友正在進行每天30分鐘的戶外課程，目前麥寮鄉立幼兒園，總共有13班約375名學童，但因為麥寮地區人口數年年增加，每年新生兒人數達3、400名，導致鄉立幼兒園不敷使用。

麥寮鄉立幼兒園園長 廖淑萍表示：「麥寮鄉公私立幼托機構，總收托數大概1200名左右，可是我們小朋友，從幼幼班、小班、中班、大班的一整個統計人數，需要2,000名幼兒，我們整個來講，我們鄉裡幼托機構，是明顯的不足量。」

麥寮鄉立幼兒園表示，今年新生入園申請，已在本月開始報名，大約有120個名額，但因為報名踴躍未來會辦理抽籤，而為了解決鄉立幼兒園不夠問題，鄉公所決定增設第二間鄉立幼兒園。

麥寮鄉鄉長 蔡長昆表示：「本來總人口數，一年都多一千多個人，所以麥寮人口，一直成長，有4萬8千人，人口越來越多，幼稚園不夠，我們也盡量要找土地來蓋，在沙崙後，明禮國小旁邊，要找一塊地來蓋幼兒園。」

麥寮鄉公所表示，相較其他鄉鎮人口不斷減少，麥寮因為社會福利好，人口持續增加，目前正在規劃新建幼兒園，預估今年10月分可發包，明年底可進行招生，可容納180名學童，希望解決當地幼兒園不足問題，也可提供更寬廣上課空間，避免群聚感染。