A delegation from the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education (GOE) in South Korea visited Pinglin Experimental Junior High School and Laomei Elementary School in New Taipei City to examine the public-private partnership experience. New Taipei City introduced private foundation resources and successfully guided the transformation of rural schools, demonstrating the results of cross-border cooperation and local cultivation, allowing local students to enjoy high-quality teaching resources.
Ou Zhihua, principal of Pinglin Shizhong Middle School, said that rural and small schools often face the impact of population outflow and low birthrate. The New Taipei City Education Bureau cooperated with Chengzhi Education Foundation to introduce KIST (KIPP-Inspired Schools in Taiwan) has systematic resources, deeply cultivates Pinglin Shizhong and Laomei Shi Primary School, and provides teacher training and operational support through private professional organizations, breaking the traditional single teaching framework; the local practice of this public-private partnership not only injects sustainable development momentum into rural schools, but also substantially improves the quality of education, allowing children to obtain a diverse and high-quality learning environment in a familiar community.
Ou Zhihua said that the school cultivates three core competencies of children through character thinking and PBL (topic-based learning); at the same time, it deepens the teaching profession with subject coaches and invites parents to work together to create a supportive partnership. Tu Zhixian, the principal of Lao Meishi Primary School, pointed out that the core of public-private collaboration is to steadily support teachers so that children can build independent learning abilities and self-confidence, and parents can also feel confident that their children can study locally.
The Chengzhi Education Foundation emphasized that through cooperation between public and private schools, the foundation helps schools create an environment that combines character and academics, making local schools a model of public-private collaboration. Lee Kang-soo, section chief of the Gyeonggi Province Department of Education in South Korea, praised KIST for developing a model suitable for Taiwan's local characteristics and directly supporting school operations. The emphasis on sustainable growth of teachers is worthy of reference; when I came to Pinglin Shizhong, in addition to seeing the passionate teachers and harmonious and warm interactions between teachers and students, I was deeply impressed by the various democratic mechanisms and free space the school provides for students to participate, such as planning their own graduation trips, planning school celebrations, and renovating the library.
Pinglin Shizhong, as the first public experimental junior high school in New Taipei City, has demonstrated the solid results of deeply cultivating tea village culture and project-based learning since its transformation in the 110th school year. The school not only performs well in the junior high school entrance examination year by year, but also continues to move in the direction of increasing A's and subtracting C's in basic academic abilities. The school's enrollment has been full for four consecutive years. Student representatives Chen Linshi and Ying Haochen gave a tour of the campus and shared "Pinglin in my eyes" and their favorite courses.
