Teacher Education and Development Study in Mathematics - IEA

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TEACHER PAY AND STUDENT MATHEMATICS ACHIEVEMENT
Municipal governments also have a few in-service centers in place to provide teachers
with rotational training in content, methods, and instruction.
Teacher recruitment
Chinese Taipei recruitment policies apply across the nation. The country has made no
major efforts to recruit mathematics and science teachers, and mathematics and science
teachers do not receive special premiums or bonuses beyond their standard salaries. The
reason may be because of the relatively large supply of science and technology graduates
within the country—slightly more than half of all recent college graduates had science
and technology backgrounds. Also, teacher education programs in universities have
been successful in recent years in terms of drawing graduate-level science students into
teaching. These graduates are possibly attracted to the profession’s pay and benefits,
good working conditions, and high social status. Because the government controls the
number of teachers trained, they can also control the supply of teachers to the labor
market. As noted, there has been a sharp decrease in the number of students accepted
for pre-service education, an indicator that recruitment has been highly successful.
However, declining student enrollments suggest that the number of teachers available
to teach is currently exceeding demand.
Teacher salaries
Both males and females, at all school levels, are paid according to the same national
schedule. The salary scheme is based on the educational background of the teacher, the
number of years of teaching experience, and special bonuses based on academic research,
administrative position, and geographic remoteness from a major city. Generally, all
teachers receive both their basic pay and a research allowance. This payment schedule
makes teachers’ salaries slightly higher than the salaries of ordinary civil service
employees. Also, despite teachers being required to teach for only nine months of the
year, they are paid for 12 months. They furthermore receive one month of merit pay and
one-and-a-half-months of pay as a New Year bonus, although most other professions in
Chinese Taipei receive at least one month of pay as a New Year bonus.
Teachers at all public schools receive near identical welfare benefits, whereas teachers at
private schools receive various welfare packages; the one each teacher receives depends
on his or her particular circumstances. For public school teachers, benefits include
public housing, low-interest housing loans, opportunity to participate in study abroad
tours, retirement payments, education allowances for dependants, and insurance.
Insurance, which constitutes 4.5% to 9% of basic pay, is also mandated for private
schools. Public school teachers can additionally receive mutual assistance payments
for marriage, layoffs, retirement, and funerals. Because teaching is considered to be
a relatively stable job with little chance of being fired or laid off, it offers reasonably
secure lifetime employment.
Teacher compensation as a whole has been very competitive with other occupations.
According to the Ministry of Education, in 1999, teachers purportedly earned 25% more
than average college graduates with similar qualifications. In 2004, the average monthly
salary of an employee in the broad professional, scientific, and technical services industry
category was around $NT48–49,000, while that of a first-year teacher was around
$NT40,000 (Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting, and Statistics, 2005; Ministry
of Education 2005); these amounts did not include the New Year bonuses. Because
teachers receive a larger New Year bonus (2.5 months) than do other government