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進入《TAIPEI TIMES 焦點》 Teachers rally to protest changes to transfer rules
National Federation of Teachers’ Unions members yesterday protest outside the Ministry of Education building in Taipei. Photo: CNA
HOMESICK BLUES: As schools downsize to accommodate demographic trends, protesters said that newly qualified teachers were worst affected by extended transfer waits
By Sean Lin / Staff reporter
Elementary and junior-high school teachers yesterday rallied in front of the Ministry of Education building in Taipei to protest against a new directive extending the period teachers must work before they are allowed to be transferred from four to six semesters.
The new rule, which took effect on Tuesday, is “punishing” faculty members who wish to spend more time with their families or are in relationships, protesters said.
National Federation of Teachers’ Unions president Chang Hsu-cheng （張旭政） said that about 10,000 teachers would be affected.
“The rule is an infringement of teachers’ right to work. Many who planned to apply for teaching jobs in their hometowns so that they could be with their families have been forced to wait another year. It has been especially detrimental to teachers who need to take care of newborns,” Chang said.
He accused the ministry of issuing the order arbitrarily, inviting teachers to attend just one of seven meetings held to discuss the directive, thereby excluding them from the decisionmaking process.
A primary-school teacher working in Taichung, surnamed Chiang （江）, said she only gets to see her husband and four-month-old child in Taipei twice a week, and that her child barely recognizes her when breastfed.
A junior-high school teacher, surnamed Huang （黃）, said the impact of the extension is exacerbated as new teachers are often the first to be reassigned when a school downsizes in response to the nation’s low birth rate, as the decision is based on the length of a faculty member’s tenure.
Once teachers are assigned to a new school, the time they must wait before being allowed to request a transfer is reset, Huang said.
“If the new school we are assigned to happens to be small and downsizes too, we are likely to be reassigned again. In this case, we might never have a chance to return to our hometowns to take care of our families,” he said.
He said he and his girlfriend, surnamed Liu （劉）, also a junior-high school teacher, originally planned to get married this year, but the ministry’s new order has disrupted their plan.
Liu said that due to their short tenure, she and Huang had been reassigned several times before they had a chance to be transferred to the same city.
“It was already hard enough for the both of us to last four semesters, let alone six,” she said.
In response, the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration section head Hsu Li-chuan （許麗娟） said the three-year term is in line with the requirement on senior-high school and vocational high school teachers and is in the students’ best interests.
The extension was made because many parents during meetings with ministry officials said they believed requiring teachers to work longer tenures at schools would benefit their children’s education.
As to teachers who are involuntarily reassigned, she said the ministry would ask local governments to register any grievances and take alternative measures to address the problem.
She did not explain what the alternative measures were.
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
