Taiwan School Retrofitting Project

Taiwan School Retrofitting Project

Recent reconnaissance reports revealed that elementary and high school buildings are the particularly vulnerable structures in Taiwan. Therefore, enhancements to the seismic capacities of the school buildings through retrofitting are urgently required. The National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering(NCREE) assisted the Ministry of Education with the organization of a program to accelerate the retrofitting and rebuilding of elementary school, junior high school, senior high school and vocational school buildings, as part of the Economic Recovery Act. Currently, the program plans to spend 18.27 billion NTD between 2009 and 2012, and has proceeded with the seismic evaluation and retrofitting of these school buildings in Taiwan. In addition, the NCREE established a Project Office for this program to ensure that the work would be carried out in the most economic and effective manner. The purpose of the office is to provide administrative and technical support, and to hold training programs and workshops for school administrators and professional engineers. Taiwan’s plans for school building seismic evaluation and retrofitting have been carried out smoothly. The current task is to continue the work effectively, and examine it to improve quality. In future, the government should actively invest more funds and extend this successful program to ensure the safety of higher-risk school buildings.