Job Discussion Forums

A.K.A.T.D.N. · Joined: 12 Jun 2004 Posts: 170

I don't fully understand this new law. Is it you can't teach kindergartners anywhere, or is it just you can't teach kids under seven years of age at schools other than bushibans? What's a bushiban and what isn't, and can you get deported if you don't know the difference and are caught teaching at one of these illegal schools?

wombat · Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 134

Good questions, let's see if we can get to the bottom of it shall we.

Taylor · Joined: 24 Oct 2003 Posts: 384 Location: Texas/Taiwan

Dear Wombat,

Thanks for the informative post. Folks like you make the esl cafe a place worth visiting.

Keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Taylor

Aristotle · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Posts: 1388 Location: Taiwan

It is not illegal for you to teach children under 6 years of age. It is prohibited by decree of the Ministry of Education for kindergartens or buxi bans to teach English to children under 6. The Ministry of Education has no authority to deport anyone. They no longer have any control over the visa process for teachers unless you are employed directly by them.
That means you cannot be legally deported for teaching children under 6 years of age. Unfortunately you can legally be illegally deported. Decrees like this one issued by the Ministry of Education are made for the express purpose of extortion. That means money is involved. Anytime money is involved the laws are interpreted and enforced in the most peculiar ways. Once you have been deported there is no way for you to challenge it legally unless you have some very powerful friends with a lot of quanxi.
Many kindergartens also have a buxi ban license for the same or adjoining premises. That means you can be employed by the buxi ban but not the kindergarten even though they are in the same building and classrooms. Students under 6 in a buxi ban kindergarten class are prohibited by the Republic of China from learning English. If the school should get caught teaching students under 6, the school gets fined and one of their licenses may be revoked or not depending on certain factors that may or may not determine what is or is not in violation of this directive.
What I am saying is that the laws are meaningless. You are a foreigner and can be deported at any time at the whims of the local authorities.
There is no rule of law in Taiwan but there is rule of corruption.
Learn how to live and work in this type of enviroment and you will be fine. The first thing you have to do is learn how to lie.

wombat · Joined: 18 Jun 2004 Posts: 134

The legislation relevant to this discussion is as follows. Unfortunately it is in Chinese, and although English translations are available, they generally do not contain the most recent changes:

In 1981 the government promulgated the Preschool Education Law 幼稚教育法
In 1983 Measures for Encouraging Private Preschool Development 私立幼稚園獎勵辦法

This article is one of the more recent on the subject and gets to the crux of the matter with quotes such as this one:
"The ministry aims to ban illegal cram schools and unregistered kindergartens. We don't mean to ban English teaching totally," - Wu Tsai-shung (吳財順), the director of the ministry's Department of Elementary and Junior High School Education.

And another And another similar article contains the following:
"The ministry only regulated in the curriculum outline for kindergarten education that kindergartens cannot teach kids by subjects as elementary schools do," said Lin Wei-Chih (林威志), an official with the ministry's Department of Primary Education. "The ministry suggested that English learning is supposed to be a small part of kindergarten education rather than the main objective."

This article pretty clearly outlines the situation regarding licensing arrangements of kindergartens and buxibans.

Here is an example from March 2003 of why things have become so confusing:
Rules eased on foreigners
� The relaxed measure was part of an amendment to the Employment Services Act (就業服務法), which was passed by the Legislative Yuan recently and promulgated by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) on Tuesday. Also stipulated in the amendment was that public and private high schools through kindergartens can employ foreign nationals as language teachers. �

This article fairly well sums up the confusion exhibited by many regarding English as a subject of study for young children

This article outlines the real situation involving the teaching of English in Taiwan and the employment of foreigners to do so, with quotes such as this:
�Lin estimated that of roughly 6,000 private kindergartens and nurseries nationwide, nearly 80 percent illegally employ foreign teachers.�