我國小班政策之檢討與改進建議

On Class-size Reduction Policy for Taiwan Compulsory Education

小班政策一直是國際教育改革運動的焦點，我國也不例外，除了在教育基本法與國民教育法宣示外，行政院在1998 年公佈的「教育改革行動方案」，也以將近400 億元的經費來降低國民中小學班級人數。但正因為推行小班政策的費用不貲，也引起學者熱烈的論辯。本論文的目的即在透過美國降低班級規模的實踐經驗，來檢討我國在這方面的做法，我們發現我國小班政策有四個問題，包括一、小班政策目標值，每班35 人，缺乏學理基礎及教育理念；二、小班政策可能擴大城鄉之間的師資差距；三、小班不一定改變教師教學信念與方式；四、對小班政策的評鑑及研究不足。本論文根據上述發現，也提出近、中、長程建議，以利我國小班政策的推行。

Class-size reduction policy has always been the focus of international education reform movements. In Taiwan， the Ministry of Education has invested nearly forty billions to reduce class-size of compulsory education since 1998. The vast investment of class-size reduction policy had triggered debates among policy makers and researchers. The main purpose of this article is to use class-size reduction experience in the United States to reflect the similar policy design and the practice for Taiwan’s compulsory education. By doing that， we find four problems in class-size reduction policy in Taiwan， including: 1. there is no educational rationale for 35 students per class; 2. class-size reduction may enlarge the inequity in teacher experience and qualifications between country and city; 3. class-size reduction doesn’t automatically change teachers’ belief and methods; and 4. there are no sufficient evaluation reports on class-size reduction policy in Taiwan. In the end， we provide three recommendations to improve the practice of class-size reduction for Taiwan’s compulsory education.