The Ministry of Education has failed to follow through on its promise that temporary teachers would receive summer pay, union activists said yesterday, promising legal action against local governments for refusing to accept subsidy payments intended to cover the teachers’ extra months of pay.
“Even though the K-12 Education Administration has offered to cover an entire year’s worth of salary for some teachers, most local governments have rejected the offer and returned the extra money to avoid having two different pay levels for temporary teachers,” National Federation of Teachers’ Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng (張旭政) said, vowing to call for mediation and arbitration with the offending local governments.
According to the union’s figures, only Yunlin County provides a full year’s salary to temporary teachers, while Kaohsiung and Chiayi City provide a full year’s salary for temporary teachers covered by administration subsidies.
All other local governments withhold one or two months of salary from temporary teachers over the summer months, even if they are rehired, the union said.
The percentage of teachers on temporary contracts has been steadily increasing to guarantee hiring flexibility as the nation copes with falling student numbers, Chang said, adding that the teachers are still required to meet licensing requirements and perform work largely identical to permanent teachers.
“They aren’t paid a salary during the summer months, even though they still have to prepare classes, complete coursework and do training just like regular teachers, and schools sometimes call them in to help with special events,” he said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) said that local governments should not use a lack of funding as an excuse for not paying teachers during the summer given the dramatic increase in central government subsidies for temporary teachers’ salaries, funding which he said increased from NT$773.5 million (US$25.7 million) in 2015 to NT$4.1 billion this year.
“Central government subsidies as a proportion of the temporary teachers’ salaries has increased from less than 7 percent to more than 32 percent, so the reality is that the financial burden on local governments has been progressively lightened,” Chang Liao said.
In response, K-12 Education Administration division head Wu Hsiao-hsia (武曉霞) said that while hiring regulations for temporary teachers are set by the ministry, there are no rules governing the periods for which they should be paid.
She that the agency has held numerous meetings with local governments and reached an agreement on plans to move in the direction of offering full-year salaries to temporary teachers, adding that it would continue to provide subsidies to help lead local governments in that direction.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
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