Incentive for teachers
As a person who has worked in the education sector my whole working life, I find the recently suggested policy of giving teachers who have taught for 10 years a paid month off ill-advised. I am quite sure the policy must have been formulated with good intentions, but I cannot see how it would provide much incentive or encouragement to teachers, and instead will cause more complications.
There are two reasons for this: One is that the 10-year stipulation is too long, and there are no specific details on whether teachers who have taught for 20, 30 or 40 years would receive the same bonus. The second is that compared with the existing winter and summer holidays, the policy’s one paid month off is too short, and therefore lacks sufficient incentive value.
I find it highly impractical and a confusion of priorities to give teachers who have been on the job for 10 years a paid month off while substitute teachers are still receiving only 10 months of pay every year. I suggest that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) grasp the nettle and address the issue of substitute teachers being woefully underpaid first.
People need to know that schools are confronting shortages of substitute teachers, resulting in some schools not being able to find substitute teachers after the semester has begun or some administrative heads having to take on the additional task of teaching.
As schools are struggling to find substitute teachers for one-year contracts, it would only be more difficult for them to find substitute teachers for a monthly term in due course.
Hu Yen-chih
Taipei
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