Education protests are a warning

Student protests have erupted in Paris, with school understaffing, overcrowded classrooms and poorly maintained buildings among the sources of discontent.

When students have classes, but no one to teach them, problems such as insufficient educational resources and poor learning environments surface. The protests also serve as a warning to Taiwan: If teacher shortages continue to worsen, it would not only be teachers’ working conditions and rights that suffer, but also the quality of education received by the next generation.

Taiwan also struggles to find teachers, particularly at the junior-high school level, with vacancies for full-time teaching positions across the six special municipalities spiking.

There are many reasons behind fewer people pursuing careers in teaching. Working conditions in schools are becoming increasingly demanding while salary increases are limited. The heavy administrative workload, pressure to communicate with parents, disputes over student discipline and the risk of complaints have made teaching a much less attractive line of work than it once was.

More significantly, the field of education is facing growing competition for talent from other industries. The semiconductor industry offers lucrative compensation. People with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math often have more attractive salaries in the tech sector.

The Chinese-language Business Weekly reported on concerns among tech industry insiders who said that the first-year annual compensation of master’s graduates joining Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co could exceed what a university professor, or even a university president, earns.

If those responsible for educating the next generation earn less than the students they teach, it is obvious why the education sector is finding it so challenging to retain top talent.

Improving teacher benefits and raising salaries across the board are measures worth considering, but they would entail substantial fiscal expenditure. A more feasible option might be to establish a reasonable differentiated salary system.

For example, rather than treating everyone equally, a transparent and publicly disclosed evaluation system could assess teachers based on indicators such as teaching quality, professional development and student learning progress, with the top 3 to 5 percent receiving substantial pay increases.

However, such an evaluation system would also have to avoid becoming a popularity contest and account for differences in teaching conditions across schools if it is to genuinely encourage outstanding teachers to stay in the profession.

The nation’s shortage of teachers is not merely a personnel issue to be handled by the Ministry of Education; it also directly affects talent development. With fewer people willing to become teachers, it will become much harder to cultivate the next generation of talent in science and engineering.

Imagine children growing up in a Taiwan that boasts world-leading semiconductor manufacturing technology, but cannot find enough teachers to staff its schools.