Unemployed Public School Teachers in Taiwan

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 TAIPEI 001290 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT PASS AIT/WASHINGTON DEPT FOR EAP/TC, INR/EAP, EAP/PD, ELAB FROM AIT KAOHSIUNG BRANCH OFFICE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL SCUL TW SUBJECT: Unemployed Public School Teachers in Taiwan SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED ¶1. (U) Summary: Taiwan is home to reportedly over 50,000 unemployed public school teachers. Local scholars attribute the increase in teacher unemployment to a decade-long "teacher cultivation program," which was designed by the Ministry of Education (MOE) to enable college graduates from universities other than normal universities to obtain education-related credentials. While the number of newborns in Taiwan has decreased by one third over the past decade, the number of trained school teachers has nearly quintupled. The MOE has been criticized for its failure to cut back on the teacher cultivation program as Taiwan's birth rate has declined. In addition to tremendous educational resources that have been injected into the teacher cultivation program, MOE's latest decision to spend another NT$4 billion to resolve the problem of massive unemployment of public school teachers is causing further criticism of the program. End summary. ¶2. (U) In January, the Taiwan Provincial Education Association and the Alliance for Education Rehabilitation held a seminar to evaluate the results of Taiwan's decade-long educational reform. Besides reviewing the results of reform in the areas of school curriculum, textbooks and entrance examinations for high school and college, scholars and experts pointed out that the teacher cultivation program, which was started ten years ago to promote an increase of supply and better qualifications for teachers, has led to massive unemployment of trained public school teachers in Taiwan. According to the Association, over 50,000 eligible public school teachers are currently unemployed and are unlikely to find teaching jobs in the near future since the supply of teachers is greater than demand in Taiwan. ¶3. (SBU) According to a China Times report dated January 18, 2006, the number of eligible teachers cultivated under the new program increased from 9,719 in 1995 to 19,390 in 2004. The same press report also indicated that the number of Taiwan's newborns decreased in the same time frame from 329,581 in 1995 to 216,419 in 2004. Taiwan Provincial Education Association Secretary-general Wang Ling-hui pointed out that the policy from ten years ago has never been revised to reflect Taiwan's decade long decline in the birth rate. As a result, most newly credentialed school teachers are headed for unemployment. ¶4. (SBU) Wang Ling-hui also pointed out that students enrolled in the teacher cultivation program have spent NT$570 million on tuition. The government also has injected significant resources to the program over the past ten years. Official statistics released by the Ministry indicated that since 1997, 108,093 of 130,000 students taking the teacher cultivation course obtained teaching credentials after completing the program and passing the national examination. Among them, 57,335 are employed and 50,758 remain unemployed, but labeled as "reserve teachers." According to National Teachers Association Chairman Wu Chung-tai, among those unemployed, only some 30,000 will continue seeking interview opportunities for teaching jobs while the rest of them will stop pursuing a teaching career. Wu noted that the Ministry should revised the policy long ago. ¶5. (SBU) While criticizing education authorities for neglecting market realities and wasting tremendous resources in the teacher cultivation program for the last decade, Taiwan Normal University Professor Wu Wu-dian expressed support for MOE's decision to allocate NT$4 billion over 2006 through 2009 to address the problem of unemployed public school teachers by increasing vacancies, encouraging earlier retirement and subsidizing schools that are suspended from running the teacher cultivation program. Wu pointed out that, in addition to allocating NT$4 billion, MOE is also planning to cut the number of students enrolled in the teacher cultivation program annually from 20,000 to 9,239, starting next year. Educational groups expressed grave concern over this cutback, noting the authorities should make a contingency plan since the cutback may eventually result in a shortage of teachers. The Ministry reportedly also plans to halve the number of students recruited by normal universities and teachers colleges in 2007 as well as to eliminate poorly performing schools from the teacher cultivation program. Scholars noted that this cutback will hurt schools' finances since the tuition from the program is a major source of additional income for most schools. TAIPEI 00001290 002 OF 003 ¶6. (SBU) According to a statistics released by the MOE, there are currently over seventy universities running the teacher cultivation program. However, the numbers show that students from the four national normal universities have a higher employment rate than their peers in other regular universities and colleges. The average employment rates for eligible teachers in northern Taiwan and southern Taiwan are 46 percent and 53 percent respectively. While students specializing in special education have the best chance of employment (74 percent),students majored in Chinese language have the lowest employment rate (40 percent). The total number of teachers teaching in high schools, junior high and elementary schools is 193,796; 65 percent of them are female. The average age of public school teachers is 39; 16.34 percent of them have master degrees. ¶7. (SBU) AIT/K discussed the problem of unemployed teachers with Lin Kuo-tsai, a public school teacher at a junior high school in Tainan. Lin first taught at a private high school in Tainan County after graduating from National Central University in Taoyuan County with a master's degree in geology. He participated in National Kaohsiung University's teacher cultivation program ten years ago when the program was launched. After obtaining his teaching credentials, he had several interviews with public high schools in central Taiwan but always fell out during the second round interviews because, he claims, he refused to pay bribes of up to NT$800,000 to get hired. Lin told AIT/K that he felt frustrated about the culture of corruption in Taiwan's academic circles. He finally took a job offer from Anshun Junior High School in Tainan City without paying a bribe. ¶8. (SBU) According to Lin, MOE initiated the teacher cultivation program when it realized that the large number of teachers hired to sustain the nine-year compulsory education system, which was started in 1968, would retire beginning 1993 after twenty-five years in service. Lin said that the program was aimed to provide replacements for those retiring teachers as well as to break the monopoly normal universities held over the island's supply of teachers. Lin noted that the program, which was widely-applauded in its early years, not only solved the problem of a teacher shortage but also diversified teachers' qualifications by developing as teachers graduates from regular universities. ¶9. (U) National Teachers Association Chairman Wu Chung-tai, a member of the Alliance for Education Rehabilitation, also noted at the seminar in January that the teacher cultivation program at its early stage was very popular that only students with outstanding academic performance passed the entrance examination to enter the program. Wu pointed out as the problem of unemployed teachers began to surface three years ago, when the number of excellent students enrolling in the program began to drop. Wu worried that the teaching excellence is likely to decline since good students have ceased to pursue teaching credentials. ¶10. (SBU) According to Lin, teaching in public school guarantees lifetime job security and income stability, thus attracting college graduates, especially at times of economic recession. A China Times report dated April 2, 2006 indicated that the number of students taking the teacher examination this year was 3.3 times greater than the number from last year. Lin attributed the growth to the downturn of Taiwan's economy. He said, some students taking the examination exhibited sarcasm and pessimism noting that they first had to pass an examination to become an unemployed teacher. The passage rate for this year's examination is reportedly to be cut from last year's rate of 91 percent to 60 percent for this year since the supply of teachers is greater than the demand. ¶11. (SBU) KMT Legislator Lee Ching-an urged education authorities to study the possibility of reducing the number of students for each public school class from 35 to 25 rather than cutting the number of teachers. Deputy Education Minister Wu Tsai-shun responded that the Ministry had suggested local governments do so several years ago but none of them complied because of a lack of government funds. In response to the low birth rate, MOE is planning to cut 500 classes nationwide for the 2006 school year. According to Wu Chung-tai, this reduction will worsen the problem of unemployed teachers because most schools will choose not to retrench any incumbent teachers to counteract the foreseeable problem of excessive teaching staff that most schools will encounter in the near future. Wu bemoaned that the presence of substitute teachers, who work "on TAIPEI 00001290 003 OF 003 call" without benefits in elementary classrooms. Using these quickly disposable teaching assets should student enrollments drop has been blamed for deteriorating the teaching quality in most rural areas. Wu suspects that this practice will continue until student attrition allows a school's existing teacher force to occupy all available teaching slots. ¶12. (SBU) Lin Kuo-tsai noted that, in addition to reducing the number of elementary and secondary school classes, increasing government subsidies for private schools to provide better salary and benefits will attract unemployed teachers and slowly help solve the problem. According to Lin, there are vacancies in most private schools but many eligible teachers are reluctant to apply for them because teachers in private schools are not entitled to government pensions. Lin also recommends that the education authorities start a proper teacher performance evaluation system to encourage better teaching quality and to allow for the efficient the dismissal of incompetent teachers. ¶13. (SBU) Comment: Although laudatory in its beginning, the teacher cultivation program's continued implementation under the DPP has begun to cause headaches for the Chen administration. The program now stands out in academic and public circles as a source of criticism against the current DPP-controlled MOE for government wastefulness and failure to advance policy reforms that will reduce, rather than enlarge, unemployment in Taiwan. End comment. Thiele Young