The declining birthrate in Taiwan continues to affect the education sector, and is becoming more serious with each passing day.
Elementary-school student enrollment is expected to decrease to fewer than 1 million by 2029 and to about 779,000 by the 2039 academic year, the Ministry of Education’s 2024-2039 student number estimation report showed.
From the start of this academic year, the average number of elementary-school students would decrease by 29,000 each year over the next 16 years.
If every class has an average of about 29 children, then about 1,000 classes would be lost each year.
That is a frightening statistic.
The negative effects of these developments would gradually pass on to middle schools, high schools and universities. Media reports have predicted that 40 universities would face the threat of closure due to declining enrollment.
To confront the severe effects of this wave of decreasing student enrollment and school closures, the Ministry of Education should take precautions by implementing suitable countermeasures.
Dramatic decreases in class sizes that cause school closures have a vast and profound impact.
The ministry should focus on two points to mitigate the effects of the falling birthrate and to enable schools to develop in a more sustainable way: the quality of education and the difficulty in opening up positions for new teachers.
As elementary-school enrollment numbers plummet, now is the perfect time to promote and implement concepts that improve the quality of education.
The Ministry of Education should appropriately reduce class sizes each year. It should seek to emulate advanced Western countries, and decrease the number of students in each class from 29 to about 20. This has two benefits.
First, it would slow the negative effect on existing teaching staff.
Second, decreasing the number of students would increase teachers’ understanding and scope of care of their students, thus increasing the efficacy of their instruction and mentorship. Huge class sizes make elementary-school education resemble a general store, but reducing class sizes should allow it to become more like a boutique.
Next, the declining birthrate has led to a phenomenon where schools are unable to hire new teaching staff.
In the past couple of years specifically, there has been a lack of substitute teachers across all counties and cities, and that would only worsen.
Schools are experiencing a situation in which old teachers are not leaving and therefore there are no openings for new teachers, a situation that leads to stagnation in the teaching body of a school.
Taiwan should follow Japan’s example by requiring teachers to transfer to another school in their locality once they have reached a certain number of years of service, thereby allowing the school to bring in new teachers. If Japan can do it, so can Taiwan.
The newly appointed minister of education should sincerely and steadfastly address this problem, using wisdom and courage to plan suitable countermeasures to the birthrate crisis, and allowing the situation to make a turn for the better. Schools should not be harmed by the declining birthrate. Instead, the government should take this opportunity to help elementary schools improve.
Tsai Jr-keng is a retired elementary-school principal.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taiwan and India are important partners, yet this reality is increasingly being overshadowed in current debates. At a time when Taiwan-India relations are at a crossroads, with clear potential for deeper engagement and cooperation, the labor agreement signed in February 2024 has become a source of friction. The proposal to bring in 1,000 migrant workers from India is already facing significant resistance, with a petition calling for its “indefinite suspension” garnering more than 40,000 signatures. What should have been a straightforward and practical step forward has instead become controversial. The agreement had the potential to serve as a milestone in
China has long given assurances that it would not interfere in free access to the global commons. As one Ministry of Defense spokesperson put it in 2024, “the Chinese side always respects the freedom of navigation and overflight entitled to countries under international law.” Although these reassurances have always been disingenuous, China’s recent actions display a blatant disregard for these principles. Countries that care about civilian air safety should take note. In April, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) canceled a planned trip to Eswatini for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s coronation and the 58th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic
RSS