The Taoyuan City Government does not intend to establish any new elementary or junior-high schools, a city official said, as the area’s falling birthrate is expected to reduce the number of elementary-school classes by 86 and junior-high classes by 111 in the coming semester.
The exceptions to the rule are Bade District (八德), Nankan (南崁) and Neili (內壢), which have seen a spike in population due to immigrants, Department of Education Director Kao An-pang (高安邦) said, adding that the department would help schools in rural areas that might be affected by the policy.
As an example, Kao said the department is helping Dahua Elementary School and Tingshe Elementary School in Nankan’s Lujhu District (蘆竹) launch bilingual classes as well as classes for gifted and talented students.
“We hope that this eases the pressure in the Nankan area, especially for schools in remote areas, by drawing more talented and gifted students to study in the [two] schools in Lujhu,” Kao said.
First-year junior-high enrollees numbered 28,181 at the start of the academic year in 2013, but that figure dropped to 25,348 last year and is expected to further decline to 23,929 when the academic year begins in September, Department of Education official Lin Kuang-wei (林光偉) said.
That would represent a decline of more than 3,000 students compared with the number of junior-high graduates — 28,506 — this year, Lin said, adding that would mean a decrease of 111 classes in the coming school year.
The number of new students starting elementary school in September is also estimated to drop by 1,000 to 19,000 — the first time the figure has fallen below 20,000, said Lin Shu-fen (淋淑芬), section-head of the department’s elementary-school education division.
That would be 86 classes less than the previous school year, she said, adding that while it is not the steepest drop on record, schools in rural areas would be greatly affected if the trend continues.
The department is starting to regulate the number of staff that elementary schools are hiring, cutting the number of teachers taking tests to 80 from more than 200, while raising the teacher-to-class ratio to 1.65 for elementary schools and 2 for junior-high schools, Kuang-wei said.
The number of students going on to college is estimated to drop by 30,000 next year, posing a bigger problem for the education system, Kao said, adding that 30 colleges might not be able to attract enough students.
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