The all-in-one human resource policy of Taiwan's Hand-in-Hand Program

The Taiwan Government launched the Hand-in-Hand After-School Care Program in 2006 with several goals. In addition to providing disadvantaged students with supplemental learning opportunities, this highly ambitious government program hopes to provide increased employment opportunities for substitute teachers and low-income college students, and also make good use of the abilities of retired teachers and private individuals. However, the results seem to be much lower than what was expected, which can mainly be attributed to the lofty but unrealistic ideals of its recruitment design. This research analyses the criteria that was used for recruiting teachers, calculating the relative weight for each criterion, and determining the instructional strengths of each of the five teacher sources. Suggestions are given for improving the teacher recruitment process of the Hand-in-Hand Program. [Author abstract, ed]