The legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee is tomorrow to begin reviewing proposed pension reforms for public-school teachers.
The issues to be addressed include the age at which retired elementary and junior-high school teachers start receiving pensions and whether retired teachers working in part-time jobs should forfeit their pensions.
The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions has been lobbying legislative caucuses to lower the age at which retired teachers can receive pensions to 55. The Pension Reform Committee advocates a minimum age of 60.
In the past, teachers began their careers in their early 20s, but teachers now mostly start work aged 27 or 28, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Li-feng (李麗芬) said.
According to the existing pension system, public-school teachers must either work 30 years or reach 60 following 25 years of service before they are allowed to retire, which means that most teachers would now be nearing 60 when they retire, she said.
Although some parents are concerned that elderly teachers might be unfit for the job, she said that teachers considered old can pass on their valuable experience to younger teachers.
As to whether retired teachers holding part-time teaching jobs should have to forfeit their pensions, Ministry of Civil Service official Lu Ming-tai (呂明泰) said retired teachers who have fixed class hours can have their pensions affected under the current system.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko Chih-en (柯志恩) said that retired teachers should still receive the portion of their pensions funded by government-made investments using monthly deductions from their salaries, which makes up 35 percent of their full pensions, adding that part-time teachers do not block teachers seeking full-time positions from finding work.
The pension rules should not be too lax or they would defeat the purpose of reform, DPP Legislator Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋) said.
Going by the ministry’s proposed rules, if retired professors who teach for six hours per week make more than the minimum wage they would have to forfeit their pensions, co-convener of the meeting and DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said, adding that the issue of pensions paid to retired teachers working part-time requires further discussion.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS