The article on brain drain and salaries, like many stories on the topic before, emphasizes the difference in pay levels for teachers in Taiwan and other countries (“Low school wages fueling brain drain,” June 23, page 4). As I pointed out on an earlier occasion, pay levels should, as a minimum, be considered in the context of the local cost of living (“Does Taiwan have a ‘brain drain?’”, Sept. 10, page 6).
Teachers in Hong Kong and Singapore would probably not be able to afford a one-room apartment within commuting distance of their jobs if their salaries were at the level of teachers in Taiwan.
Salaries at universities of about equal ranking in the US vary significantly depending on the cost of living in their area.
The article does bring into consideration one other relevant factor: the plight of the universities due to population trends.
Unfortunately, the Legislative Yuan’s Organic Laws and Statutes Bureau seems to miss the most important point: The population in the age group that will be attending universities and post-graduate institutions will be declining for most of the next decade or two, if mortality rates do not decrease markedly in the near future.
Yes, as the article points out, there is a problem in that demand for post-high-school education will be decreasing. That creates at least three significant areas of concern.
The first is that job security in education will generally decline. People willing to enter the education field can no longer be confident of having 20 to 40 years of continuous employment. As the population of potential students decreases, so will the number of teaching positions.
Even worse, if the policy is to retain experienced teachers, new entrants into the field may expect to have fewer than 10 years before their positions are cut. This will eventually lead to an aging body of teachers and it will be difficult to replace them when they reach retirement age.
Even if young people continue to aspire to be teachers, this would lead to a rather sudden generational shift in the teaching body in about 15 years.
In Massachusetts, where I used to live, the number of applicants for teaching positions in elementary schools used to be fewer than 30 for every job opening until the early 1970s. The declining birth rate in the late 1960s called for the closure of many sections of the early grades in years after 1967.
By the 1970s, the number of applications for each elementary-school teaching job soared to above the 300 level: A combination of fewer openings due to retirement or other causes and the increase in former teachers no longer needed in the system.
Trends such as that not only tend to encourage migration, they also deter people from considering teaching as a profession.
In Taiwan’s case, this would be severely aggravated by the relaxation of China’s one-child policy, which will increase the demand for teachers there, while it decreases in Taiwan.
The second issue relates to dealing with excess teaching capacity. The easy way would be to use the relation of demand for admission to the existing faculty be the criterion.
If that becomes the case, however, it is probable that prospective students would opt for the institutions that are most likely to give them degrees than for those that have high standards and demand evidence of effective learning before granting degrees.
In that case, universities with lower standards would prosper and those that guarantee a degree in four years regardless of performance would become dominant, while those with higher standards would disappear.
That would have very serious long-term consequences, not just for the drain of brains, but from the lack of improvement in existing brains.
The third is universities might close departments if they become “too small.”
If no attention is paid to the need for coordination in this area, it is possible that three universities in a given area might all close the same department even though students in that area might be better served by having one of the universities keep that marginal department, while the other two universities close other marginal departments.
An alternative that has been used in the US at the doctorate level is for each school to admit students every third year, allowing each school to keep those programs in operation.
Emilio Venezian is a former visiting professor at Feng Chia University.
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