As a new school year began last week, the problems caused by the nation’s declining birth rate and low school enrollment more apparent than ever.
Several schools were shut down or merged because of low student numbers, while others barely hung on with a handful of students.
The declining birth rate, which stood at 8.9 births per 1,000 people last year — down from 15 per 1,000 in 1997 — and greater migration to urban areas in search of economic opportunities have left small, usually remote schools vulnerable to closures to save educational resources and tax dollars.
PHOTO: CNA
Ministry of Education (MOE) figures showed that 138 elementary and junior high schools were shut down or merged with other schools between 2002 and last year.
The closures have triggered a debate over whether to allow small schools to stay open, as parents and others raise concerns about the quality of education.
Parents’ concerns over children having to travel long distances to attend class if their local schools are closed have been pitted against worries that small schools cannot offer a quality education.
Nowhere is the dilemma more pronounced than in Penghu.
On the Penghu islet of Dacang (大倉), Chen Yu-chie (陳煜擷) and eight other children have traveled by boat to attend school since the only elementary school on the islet closed in 2005 because of low enrollment.
They take village chief Cheng Chun-jen’s (鄭尊任) personal boat to Magong (馬公) every morning, then take a taxi to school, a 20-minute trip.
On the way back, they take a boat hired to bring them home each day.
Chen’s father, Chen Ching-hai (陳清海), said a school boat wasn’t made available by the county government until this year. Until then, the children had to squeeze onto a regular commuter vessel between Dacang and Makong with adult passengers to go to school.
“We had worried about our kids’ safety until we had the special commuting boat for students,” he said.
The low enrollment at Penghu schools is not only the result of the low birth rate, but also from the fact that many families have moved to Taiwan proper to look for employment. Others have moved from the small islets to the bigger islands because transportation between the islets is inconvenient.
Since 1983, six of Penghu’s elementary schools have closed, leaving only eight schools, education ministry statistics showed.
This year, two of the schools have only nine students each, making them some of the smallest schools in the country.
But Penghu schools are not the only schools dealing with shrinking numbers. In other remote areas, this year’s elementary school enrollment isn’t much better.
In Taitung County, 55 elementary schools are so small they have six or fewer classes each. Two of the schools had only one first grader enrolled for this academic year, the county’s education department said.
On the first day of school last Monday, 90 elementary schools in Taitung opened — one fewer than the previous year because of the low enrollment.
Even where low enrollment numbers are not the primary reason behind a closure, it may be cited to justify closing schools against parents’ wishes.
One such case was Tsung Yeh Elementary School in Madou Township (麻豆), Tainan County. Its closure drew public attention after hundreds of students, parents and residents took to the streets last month in protest of the decision to close it.
Tsung Yeh had 156 students before it was merged with a nearby school in June to make way for an art center.
Tsung Yeh’s students were instructed to transfer to other schools in Madou Township.
“I only want to graduate from Tsung Yeh together with my classmates,” said Cheng Ya-chin (鄭雅心), a sixth grader from Tsung Yeh who represented other students in filing a petition with the MOE to keep the school open.
She expressed reluctance to be separated from classmates she had studied with for five years and still hoped against all odds that the petition would be successful and she and her friends could return to Tsung Yeh for their final year before graduating.
Still, some small schools manage to survive.
A proposal 15 years ago to close schools in Liji (利吉) and Fuyuan (富源) villages in the mountains of Beinan Township (卑南), Taitung County, because each had had fewer than 15 students for years, was rejected.
The plan was withdrawn after talks between administrators and residents, who saw the need to keep the school open for students who cannot afford to travel to distant schools in bigger towns or cities, Taitung County Education Department Director Huang Chi-teng (黃子騰) said.
The school in Liji has only one new student this year, a first grader who lives with her grandfather because her parents work in the city.
The situation is similar in Fuyuan, which had a quiet first day last Monday to welcome its only new student, a first grader.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in June that remote schools could not be shut without careful consideration because they are not just schools, but also centers for community activities.
Some education experts, however, say small classes cannot offer a proper educational environment.
Former National Chi Nan University president Lee Chia-tung (李家同) said “one-on-one” instruction was bad because it did not offer students enough “cultural stimulus” or a competitive environment.
“Just imagine the students with no companions to play with in school,” Lee said.
However, he added: “Whether or not to close [small schools] depends on the individual case.”
Huang said educators were conflicted about whether to close shrinking schools. If they are closed, some students are forced to walk for hours to a school miles away from their home.
During the last academic year, 162 of 2,651 elementary schools and 15 of 740 junior high schools had fewer than 50 students each.
The low birth rate has also caused a drop in enrollment at universities and the question of whether to shut down small schools is expected to grow more pronounced in coming years.
Department of Elementary Education Director Yang Chang-yu (楊昌裕) said that the law allowed local governments to close a school.
“The MOE cannot interfere, but can only offer principles and express concerns,” he said.
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