Submitted by: Submitted by ninyu
Views: 415
Words: 597
Pages: 3
Category: Societal Issues
Date Submitted: 02/28/2011 02:23 AM
Teacher in Taiwan
Teachers in Taiwan enjoy a relatively higher occupational prestige and an overall greater satisfaction with their jobs than teachers elsewhere. These outcomes may be attributed to the traditional Confucian value, the stable nature of teacher, and the favorable government policies in teacher education and schooling operations adopted over past decades. Due to all these advantages, there are hundreds of thousands students eagerly anticipated to be accepted into teacher’s universities every year.
According to Confucian value, teacher plays the most integral role for a country’s sustainable development . Therefore, not only the public’s expectation but also the social status of teacher is extremely high. There is even a Chinese idiom telling students to “respect your teacher as if he is your father”, which explains the high occupational prestige of teacher as well as the desire for normal people to become one.
Furthermore, since teacher is considered as one of the most important factor in a country’s sustainable development, they also benefit from favorable policies from the government. Welfares include unpaid parental leave for up to 2 years , full amount salary paid during summer and winter vacations even though they are not working, and government-owned supermarkets which sell discounted products only for teachers or other civil servants. Moreover, one of the most controversial welfare was the “18% interest rate policy” . Based on this policy, all teachers could be deposited in a nation-run bank with 18% annual interest rate which is much more profitable than investing in many other financial products. Another special policy is that teachers who retire after age 55 or teaching for more than 20 years are able to receive 95% of their salary as their retirement pension every month until death .
In addition, as a civil servant, Taiwanese teacher has little work pressure and is almost impossible to be fired or laid off. Especially during...