They stand at the same podiums, teach the same students, and dedicate the same years of their lives to education. Yet Taiwan's public and private school teachers inhabit entirely different worlds — one protected by the state, the other largely abandoned by it. This division is not rhetorical exaggeration, but a reality written directly into law.
Walk into any private high school or university classroom, and the scene is indistinguishable from its public counterpart. Teachers prepare lessons, deliver lectures, grade papers, and counsel students. Despite identical work and dedication, a stark gap emerges in compensation. Public school teachers enjoy clearly defined hourly rates protected by law, along with a full salary structure that includes base pay and allowances. Part-time instructors at private institutions, by contrast, often find their rates frozen at the legal minimum for years or quietly reduced under the guise of flexible adjustments. Full-time private school teachers fare little better. When a school faces financial difficulty, salary increases are indefinitely deferred, with management citing the Private School Act as convenient cover. Although both groups educate Taiwan's children, their compensation suggests they work in entirely different countries.
If the pay gap represents hardship, the retirement gap borders on despair. Public school teachers fall under the civil servant retirement system, which provides a state-guaranteed pension. Even after recent pension reforms, a stable retirement income remains assured. Private school teachers are governed by the Labor Standards Act and the Labor Pension Act, placing them in a position no different from — and sometimes more precarious than — ordinary workers. If their employing school closes, years of accumulated service can effectively vanish, leaving behind little more than a nominal severance package.
Taiwan has witnessed a wave of private university closures in recent years, and each shutdown takes with it more than student enrollment records. It destroys the professional futures of the educators who served there. Instructors who dedicated 20 or 30 years to a private institution find themselves retiring with modest labor pension balances, while watching former colleagues at public schools receive steady monthly payments. This contrast is difficult to rationalize on any principled grounds.
The root of this problem lies in institutional indifference. The ministry responsible for education has been aware of this two-track system for decades, consistently invoking respect for private school autonomy as a reason to avoid intervention. This framing obscures a fundamental inconsistency. Students at private institutions receive nationally recognized diplomas, their tuition is acknowledged by the state, and the government imposes the same educational quality standards across both sectors. The protections afforded to the educators delivering that instruction should not differ so dramatically.
This disparity is not a technical dispute about resource allocation, but a political choice about values. By classifying private teachers' working conditions as a labor-management issue or a market matter, the government absolves itself of responsibility. Teachers left to navigate this system exhaust themselves filing petitions, receiving little more than bureaucratic silence in return. Ultimately, students bear the cost of this injustice. When poor compensation deters talented educators from private schools, and financial pressures stretch remaining teachers too thin to invest in professional development, a decline in educational quality becomes inevitable.
Taiwan's leaders frequently speak of education as a generational priority, yet the system they maintain signals to private school teachers that their contributions are not a state concern. Taiwan's classrooms have never lacked committed teachers; what they lack is a system designed to treat those teachers equitably. Closing this gap does not require sweeping reform. It only requires the government to acknowledge that equal work deserves equal protection, moving toward pay parity and establishing meaningful retirement security for private educators. In the eyes of the students sitting in those classrooms, there is no distinction between public and private teachers — and the law should reflect that reality.
＊The author is a professor at National Kaohsiung Normal University. （Related： South Korea Secures Priority Oil Exports From UAE Amid Hormuz Blockade ｜ Latest ）
