Earlier this month, Premier William Lai (賴清德) announced that the hourly wage for part-time and full-time substitute elementary-school teachers is to be raised from NT$260 to NT$320, which is good news for part-time teachers.
However, the Cabinet should also pay more attention to the plight of the full-time substitutes, who have a workload similar to regular teachers, but receive far lower salaries and welfare benefits.
The status of full-time substitute teachers is equal to that of temporary contract workers. Regardless of whether they have a teaching certificate, most only receive minimum wage.
While those with certificates are paid slightly more, they still earn less than full-time regular teachers.
Full-time substitutes have the same workload as their regular counterparts, but receive neither a pension nor performance bonuses, and in some counties and cities their service is not even counted toward seniority.
Meanwhile, local governments have the authority to set salaries and teaching requirements for full-time substitutes in their areas, which has resulted in a disorganized situation where people are paid differently for doing the same job.
To save money, county and city governments often set a substitute’s contract period to run from the end of August to the beginning of July the following year, which means full-time substitutes only receive 10 months’ salary.
One elementary-school principal has told me that some schools require full-time substitutes to share in the administrative work during summer vacation, but as volunteers as they are not paid.
Some senior teachers go even further, taking advantage of full-time substitutes’ fear of losing their job by having them do all the duties that they as regular teachers should do themselves. This is pure and unadulterated exploitation.
The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions has on many occasions protested to the Ministry of Education against these gross injustices, and some lawmakers sternly questioned former education minister Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) over the issue.
Pan told the lawmakers that beginning some certain year, every county and city government should pay 13.5 months’ annual salary to all full-time substitutes.
Yet what has happened? It seems it was all empty promises, as full-time substitutes in some cities and counties still have to work during summer vacation without getting paid to be able to keep their jobs and continue to make a living.
Full-time substitution is an odd occurrence to begin with, as it is the result of some county and city governments that want to save money.
They prefer to use a substitute system offering no protection for substitute teachers rather than filling vacancies for regular teachers.
A university classmate of mine has served as full-time substitute at so many schools across the nation that he has former students in almost every county and city, which is saddening and enraging.
Lai should pay attention to the injustices suffered by full-time substitutes.
The best thing would of course be if this system that takes such advantage of substitutes to be able to avoid hiring regular full-time teachers could be rooted out in every city and government, but if that is not possible, full-time substitutes should be paid the same salary as full-time regular teachers.
This disguised exploitation of the nation’s substitute teachers must end.
Hsu Yu-fang is a professor of Sinophone literatures at National Dong Hwa University.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming
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