WHO statistics report 1.8 deaths in every 100,000 children aged 0 to 14 in Taiwan, a rate over three times above that of the equally maritime Australia and also exceeding tallies in Japan, Italy, Singapore, Great Britain and many other nations, according to the United Evening News.

These stats are simply unacceptable.

Many reasons have been postulated for the high rate of water deaths — a Chinese cultural fear of water that leads to childhood avoidance of swimming, the fact that most beaches along the coast have hard, strong currents, and the lack of clean, available indoor swimming pools around much of Taiwan. All these reasons or excuses are valid, but they don’t change the simple fact: our children are drowning.

Lin Yue-ching from the Ching Chuan Child Safety Education Foundation, a source of safety information and advocacy, says water safety receives little attention from the Taiwan government. A swimming curriculum is not implemented nationwide at the elementary-school level, and the programs available teach only swimming techniques and not safety, unlike the programs of Australia which trains students in all areas from recognizing dangerous tides to CPR. Lin also said a recent survey of risky water areas in Taiwan conducted by the organization revealed that danger signs were often plastered over with commercial advertisements, overgrown with weeds, or worn white from the elements.

Humans, as is well-known, begin life in liquid. Until the first second that a baby’s body encounters oxygen, it has lived a life more like a fish, taking life-sustaining oxygen through the placenta. Babies instinctively know how to hold their breath under water, but lose this instinct somewhere along the line. Simply put, nature intended very young humans to be comfortable in and under water.

Taking swimming lessons must not be seen as a good idea for when we have the free time — they must be considered as vital and mandatory. It’s not just that Taiwan is a river-filled island. As Taiwan blogger Michael Turton points out, another drowning risk often overlooked is the constant presence of water in farms, including innumerable irrigation ditches, dams, culverts, and aquaculture pools.

Lin of the Ching Chuan Child Safety Education Foundation feels the government should do more to mandate swimming lessons in schools. “Our field investigation found that only 3.56 percent of schools nationwide require that their students learn to swim. In addition, swimming lessons should consist of more than just letting students learn to swim. Students should be taught practical survival skills in water, especially in emergencies,” said Lin.

While sending a kid to study advanced calculus all summer long at a cram school may bring better test scores, learning to swim this summer just might save a life. Let’s stop making excuses and start saving children.

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