Education helps people to get high paying jobs, become better citizens, and enjoy higher quality lifestyles. In 2015, the United Nations proposed 17 sustainable development goals, one of which is quality education.

Although education plays a crucial role in society, many countries have problems offering quality education in rural areas. Taiwan is one of these countries.

There has long been a significant gap between the quality of education in urban Taiwan and that in rural Taiwan. Indeed, in the 2019-2020 academic year, there were 99,461 students in Taiwan’s rural schools who were in need of better education.

To solve the problems with Taiwan’s rural education, the government should encourage more teachers to teach in the countryside.

The current education situation in rural Taiwan

The poverty cycle

First, there is a higher percentage of children living in disadvantaged families in rural areas than in urban areas. Because most of their parents are not educated past secondary school, they are working class and know little about how to pass on study habits to their children.

Also, because of low income, these parents cannot afford quality education and extracurriculars for their children. Indeed, 13.3 percent of Taiwan’s rural families have an “unstable income”. As a result, many rural children focus less on education than their urban peers. This in turn means that rural children are likely to lack economic opportunities when they grow up, similar to their parents.

Lack of teachers

Another problem with Taiwan’s rural education is that most teachers are unwilling to relocate to rural areas and teach because they are attracted to the higher salaries in urban areas. For example, in 2019, although rural schools in Chiayi had 20 job openings, they could only recruit seven new teachers. Although some teachers start their careers in the countryside, most of them relocate to cities as they gain experience.

Some rural schools have attempted to recruit teachers by relaxing application requirements, but doing so allows some teachers without teacher certificates to apply. This means students in rural schools have some teachers who struggle. Therefore, these teachers are not always effective at motivating their students to learn effectively and think critically.

The shortage of teachers in rural schools also means teachers in these schools are overworked. Let’s say a school in Puli lacks teachers, so the teachers there undertake administrative affairs, teach multiple classes, and prepare for their lessons. As a result, many rural teachers need to spend more time working than urban teachers. In turn, because of being overloaded with work, many rural teachers cannot pay enough attention to individual students.

Potential Solutions

Even though there are problems with Taiwan’s rural education, there are several potential solutions.

One solution is that the government can pay more money to attract teachers to teach in rural Taiwan. The longer period of time teachers are willing to teach in rural schools, the more money these teachers should earn. Moreover, the government should also offer stipends for housing and training to attract more teachers to the countryside.

The government should also provide training for teachers who teach in the countryside. In the past, rural teachers usually traveled to major cities to get trained. However, the training instructors can hold more training services in locations within rural areas while providing transportation for teachers to attend.

For example, if a group of instructors want to provide a training service for teachers who teach in Hualien County, the ideal location may be Hualien City. Thus, more rural teachers can spend less time traveling to their training services and get their training done. With sufficient training, more rural teachers are more prepared to motivate their students to learn.

To help with the heavy workload, Taiwan’s rural schools can also provide volunteering opportunities for retired local residents. Because some professions at schools such as administration staff can be replaced by volunteers, rural teachers can focus more on their teaching. Therefore, teachers can pay closer attention to their students’ learning and spend more time preparing their lessons.

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To summarize, Taiwan should try to recruit more teachers for rural schools. The quality of education should be equal among citizens, no matter whether they are raised in urban or rural areas. What students in rural Taiwan need for their education is teachers who can guide them learn in the long term, so rural schools need support from both the government and educational organizations.

The nonprofit educational organization Teach for Taiwan (TFT) has tried to bridge the inequality between rural and urban education. Founded in 2013, TFT has trained over 170 youths with different specialties into teachers, supported 60 schools within 43 rural districts, and served about 5000 rural students in Taiwan. With the help of educational organizations and the government, the education in rural Taiwan may improve.