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Educators, ministry negotiate bill

Pre-school and kindergarten educators from around the country protest in Taipei yesterday together with children against a draft law on the education of young children. PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES

The Ministry of Education (MOE) and early childhood education representatives reached a preliminary agreement after more than 10,000 pre-school and kindergarten educators took to the streets yesterday, calling on the ministry to stop neglecting education for young children and to withdraw a bill from legislative review.

After a closed-door meeting lasting an hour, MOE Secretary-General Chen Ming-yin (陳明印) promised to hold further negotiations with educators before Dec. 15, but said it was pointless to pull the draft law from the Legislative Yuan because it had no chance of review.

Because childcare centers and kindergartens are subject to separate regulations, standards for teacher qualifications, operations and government subsidies differ, she said.

To integrate the two systems, the Cabinet introduced a childhood care and education bill to the Legislature in May.

Early Childhood Education Alliance president Huang Li-chu (黃麗珠) yesterday called the act "a perfect example of the ministry's indifference" to the early childhood education sector.

Huang said it was wrong to include babysitting services and education for children up to 12 years old in the bill.

Huang said that the government and sector agree it is necessary to integrate nurseries, preschools and kindergartens, but added that the ministry's proposal was "ridiculous" because it included such a wide range of services.

"We are educators, not businessmen. We should not be treated like we are running commercial cram schools. It is obvious the ministry does not care about early childhood education. Why is it that the ministry is willing to spend NT$50 billion (US$1.5 billion) on tertiary education for the next five years, but only a few million on pre-elementary education?" she asked.

The protesters demanded the ministry remove a regulation in the bill that would require parents to sign a contract with the school their child attends before the school year's start.

The contract template proposed by the ministry "commercializes" early-childhood education and treats children as commodities, the educators said.

"The regulation is dangerous and unfair for parents with troubled children because according to the contract, schools have the right to refuse to accept students if the students or parents do not fulfill the terms. This will indirectly create many unwanted students," Huang said.

In response to the protest, Chen said the ministry would drop the regulation and draw up an alternative proposal to ensure the quality of early childhood education.

At a separate setting, however, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) urged lawmakers across party lines to support the bill.

In addition to integrating different kinds of education for young children under one law, the bill also aims to solve other problems, she said.

One issue is the quality of privately run schools, Alliance for Integrated Childcare Policy convener Liu Yu-hsiu (劉毓秀) said at the press conference.

"More than 70 percent of kindergartens and childcare centers nationwide are privately owned and operated," Liu said. "They charge parents very high fees, but a lot of them hire unqualified teachers and pay them minimal salaries."

Monthly fees for private childcare centers and kindergartens in Taipei can range from NT$11,000 to NT$17,000, while public schools average around NT$6,000, she said.

"Although operators are charging so much, the nationwide average salary for childcare workers and kindergarten teachers is only about NT$28,000," she said.

To combat the issue, the bill proposes creating more public kindergartens and encouraging non-profit organizations working with childcare issues to set up non-profit kindergartens.

Standardized contracts for private kindergartens would also be imposed under the bill, Huang Sue-ying said.

To ensure affordable childcare, both public and non-profit kindergartens would receive subsidies from the government, Huang said.

"Of course private childcare operators will be against it, but I don't think they need to worry," Liu said.

"There will always be parents who are willing to pay more to have their children attend private kindergartens," Liu said.
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