In the News

Private school employees to receive pensions

• Publication Date：06/02/2009
• Source： United Daily News

The Legislative Yuan passed June 1 the preliminary draft of a bill relating to the retirement, compensation, severance and resignation of private school employees. The bill is designed to improve the lives of more than 60,000 private school teachers and staff, who will be entitled to the same monthly pensions that their counterparts in public schools receive, if the bill becomes law.

“As a result of this bill, which will help to provide security to positions at private schools and help private school teachers fulfill their teaching and research responsibilities, the government will have to add an additional NT$470 million (US$14 million) to its budget,” said Lu Mu-lin, deputy minister at the Ministry of Education, during a joint meeting of the Legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee and Education and Culture Committee. He said the bill would help improve the educational environment at private schools, and that as a result private school teachers would be less inclined to look for positions at public schools.

The MOE will help private schools set up a corporate entity to manage their pension funds. The entity will be comprised of members chosen from the private schools’ boards of directors, as well as faculty representatives.

If the bill is passed, private high schools will be required to deposit an amount equivalent to 3 percent of their tuition fees into special preparatory savings accounts. Primary and secondary schools will be required to deposit an amount equivalent to 2.1 percent of their miscellaneous fees into similar accounts. The deposits will have to be made within two months after a semester begins.

The money for the pension fund will be derived as follows: contributions from faculty and staff will make up 35 percent of the fund; the special preparatory savings accounts will make up another 26 percent; the private schools themselves will contribute 6.5 percent; and the remaining 32.5 percent of the fund will come from the Ministry of Education. It is estimated that the government will contribute more than NT$1.4 billion to the fund.

In the future faculty and staff from private schools will have to contribute between roughly NT$1,400 and NT$3,600 per month to the pension fund. When they retire they will be entitled to receive a monthly pension between NT$45,000 and NT$50,000, thus helping to close the current gap between private and public school employees.

The Legislative Yuan also passed a resolution stating that the Executive Yuan and the Examination Yuan shall have to submit amendments to the Labor Insurance Act and Insurance Act of Civil Servants and Teachers within six month of the bill’s passage. As a result private school employees will be switched to labor insurance coverage from civil servants coverage and thus be eligible for annuities, which will further help to strengthen the retirement system of private school employees.