A pension reform proposal that would raise the age of retirement for K12 teachers from 55 to 60 would make it harder for prospective teachers to find work and increase the average age of teachers, a teachers’ union official said.
The proposal represents a moderate improvement to a similar one made by former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, National Federation of Teachers Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) said.
However, such a reform would only extend the life of the pension program for a few more years before it becomes unsustainable, necessitating further reform and forcing young teachers to work in an unstable environment, Chang said.
The reform proposal does not apply to teachers at private schools, head of Taiwan Higher Education Union’s organization department Lin Po-yi (林伯儀) said.
Teachers at private colleges and universities account for about 60 percent of all teaching staff in higher education, but the income replacement rate of their pensions is less than 30 percent, much lower than their counterparts in public institutions, Lin said.
As a result, the national conference on pension reform, which is scheduled to take place today, would neither facilitate real dialogue nor achieve consensus, Lin said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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