MOE mulls cutting class sizes as births fall

The Ministry of Education hopes to make the class sizes of elementary schools smaller in view of the sharply declining numbers of students, an education official said yesterday.

Vice Minister of Education Wu Ming-ching (吳明清) made the remarks at the Legislative Yuan while giving a report on the educational budget at a meeting of the Budgets and Final Accounts Committee, which reviews the implementation of the central government's 2002 budgets.

The ministry estimated last month that the number of Grade 1 students enrolling for the new school year that begins in September will decline to about 284,000, the lowest figure in half a century.

Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tang Chin-chuan (湯金全) said the number of newborn babies in the country last year was only about 220,000, down almost 100,000 from the figure of 1997.

Tang this phenomenon will certainly affect the number of new student enrollments, which in turn will have a serious impact on the future development of the education system.

"The decrease of school-age children will cause a large number of teachers to become unemployed and many colleges will also face the scenario that they are not able to take in enough students in the very near future," Tang said.

He said he doubted whether the ministry has prepared any plans to deal with the vast change in the population structure when implementing educational reform.

Wu the ministry has noticed the plummeting numbers of school-age children and held a conference last Sunday to discuss how to deal with the impact of the decline on the education system.

Wu the conference participants had reached a preliminary consensus on reducing class sizes, currently between 30 and 40 students per class, starting in August.

"The ministry will take the opportunity to reduce class sizes, but it will not move in the direction of cutting the number of classes or teachers," he said.

Wu dismissed rumors that the ministry will abolish schools in remote areas order to save money, stressing the ministry will invest more in those schools to help develop their uniqueness instead.