Recently, the Ministry of Education has proposed building a classification system of teachers through evaluation, suggesting that primary and secondary-school teachers be classified into several levels according to their academic background, further education and performance.
According to Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝), under the proposed system, teachers on different levels will have different workloads and responsibilities in accordance with their competence, and be paid according to these levels. Tu said that this will boost teachers' dignity, motivate further study, improve professional skills and even raise their social status.
Today, teacher classification has become a global trend as more countries are adopting such systems, mostly based on teachers' seniority, academic background and further education. The ministry's intention was positive, as it attempts to ensure teachers' quality through the system. But it may lead to yet another education disaster if the system is launched without thorough consideration.
The biggest problem of the proposal is who should conduct the evaluation, and how to do it. Should it be conducted by ministry officials, senior school administrators, teachers and students, or an independent evaluation mechanism? If it should be conducted by the ministry, does it have enough manpower and resources? If by school administrators or other colleagues, will those who have better interpersonal relationships with their colleagues, and those who curry favor with their supervisors be rated much higher? If by an independent mechanism, how will it evaluate every teacher's performance throughout each semester? Not to mention that many Taiwanese schools tend to report good news while covering up bad news.
If it is conducted by students themselves, how can our elementary and high-school students objectively judge their teachers' performance without any emotional interference? As more and more schools, especially private ones, are treating students as "customers," school administrators are attaching much greater importance to students' opinions. However, I know that some outstanding teachers were actually punished after a few students complained in teacher's evaluations about having too much homework, or that their teachers demanded too much. Also, it is common for ill-behaved students to purposely lower the evaluation scores of those who teach strictly. It is therefore unrealistic to ask students to conduct such evaluations.
My suggestion is: When developing the evaluation method, the ministry should employ more concrete criteria -- including teachers' seniority, academic background, further education, special licenses and professional experience, along with their general performance. There should be a student-opinion section. But such opinions are for reference only.
Meanwhile, an evaluation should be conducted by an independent school committee formed by administrators and teachers, and education experts from outside the school, or even parents. They should honestly follow the ministry's evaluation standard so as to play this game fairly, and not be influenced by school administrators' manipulation during the evaluation process. The results should be confidential, and be available only to school administrators and teachers themselves in order to avoid unnecessary comparisons.
Education is the foundation of a nation, and it is absolutely necessary to monitor our teachers' performance. Nevertheless, when designing the new system, it is crucial to view a teacher's quality from a broader perspective, fairly and objectively.
Chang Sheng-en is a lecturer of English at Shih Chien University and National Taipei College of Business.
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