Please give me your advice on my kids' education in Taiwan

Taiwan Parenting
101

[quote=“zender”]Petrichor will, no doubt, give you better advice than I can.

My kids are the same age as yours and I see what they study every day in a public school (in New Taipei).

I think I posted near the start of this thread on the difficulty of an 8 and 10-year-old trying to catch up here. The difficulty has doubled in the last three years. Think of reading and writing 8th-grade Chinese as equal in difficulty to someone who had never seen a word of English being thrown into 12th grade in an LA public school. And you and your wife can’t help them.

Reading and writing in Chinese is harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrd! . . . harder than Tainan Cowboy when he listens to Rush Limbaugh.

Other than PE and math, your kids would be more lost than you would have been had you been transported to deepest darkest Congo when you were 11 to 13.

I say forget about Taiwan public schools. My kids have done well in them, and they’ve never been bullied, but they are native Chinese speakers. I know how much work they’ve put in to get to their levels.[/quote]

Absolutely. Their oldest child will be 13 and enter junior high, right? With zero Chinese? Not a chance in hell. It sounds negative, but… :noway: I’d almost call it child abuse. :2cents:[/quote]

Thank you for quick input. What you say is really horrible. I am sorry I forgot to say I am just an ordinary university professor. I don’t think the offer will include international school’s tuition and fees. I reckon my budget will be very tight. I know Taiwan. I once lived here for few years when I was single. I love the country but my Chinese ability is limited to everyday conversation. I don’t really read or write Chinese. My family situation is perhaps very unique from all expats in Taiwan so far. I don’t fly British Airways or China Airlines nor I teach in TES nor I work for Chase or diplomat missions. That’s the reason I plan to stay for as long as I can, and then I’d like my kids to go to public schools. They may have to delay their school for 1 year to study Chinese, which they starts now in Vietnam. The interesting thing is that they like about moving to Taiwan.

Perhaps we just take the risk as we have taken it many times from moving around different countries in past years. I will search for more info on bilingual schools. I will copy Petrichor by visiting the schools hopefully next month when I have some days off.
Zender: did you kids already speak good Chinese when they first arrived in Taiwan in 2010? Did they also write?
Thank you again.

102

[quote=“BigJohn”]When I was 10-12 years old I lived in a small African country where there was no good English language education beyond grade 6. So, my parents and some other parents set up a small distance learning group. 7 kids, two teachers. One the math/science supervisor, the other was the English / lib arts person. We worked through our correspondence courses with supervision and help from those two. I chewed my way through American grade 6 in 4 months, using only 4 hours per day,and had social contact with peers or near-peers.

Maybe you could try something similar. There’s no shortage of talented ex-pat teachers in Taiwan who would like to make a bit of extra money, and with the INternet these days there are so many additional resources to choose from. You just need to choose the right distance program.

Just an idea![/quote]

After nearly 4 years, your idea turns out to be a very bright one for me. Thank you. I will search for the sources.

103

[quote=“asiababy”]My children also attend a small, public country school like the one kaikapati describes. 65 kids from preschool to 6th grade, six kids in my son’s first grade. Three of those six have non-local mothers (Vietnam, Phillipines, NZ). It’s not a beautiful school but it’s a place where my son, who did not like the large class of 27 in preschool at all, is content and confident. And they have fresh meals and snacks made right before they eat them, everyday. I think the locals think we are a bit mad to choose this school over the choices we had in Muzha, but there are so many pluses for us. The main one being, my children have all the support they need to keep up, and maybe even excel, in the language areas. Another one being, with so few kids, the teacher can cover a lot more work and have special activities (art, music, nature) , and still not have so much homework. There is just more time for individual attention.

Most of these schools have “open” enrolment policies. For example, anyone in Keelung (Jilong) can enrol in our school.

Some options in the city are Gongguan Elementary and Bao Jia Elementary. These have been written about before in this forum somewhere.[/quote]

Can you teach me how to find such a school as I am trying to look for similar school in Kaohsiung area. I’d like to weigh on all possible options. Any how has it been going since your last post? Thanks asiababy

1 Like
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[quote=“beckypeiyu”]Hi, I’m new here.
I happened to have some information about your question.
Please check this out: taiwanwhatsup.immigration.gov.tw … blishNo=52 Foreign students eligible for public school enrollment 外籍人士子女在台就學 選擇多元化

This is one of the topics that our newsletter used to cover. However, all these schools in the newsletter are in Taipei or Hsinchu.
In Kaohsiung, unfortunately, I just called and asked the Education Bureau in the city government, they don’t have this kind of “Language Education Classes” in the public schools.

I found a web link to all the international schools in Kaohsiung: boe.kh.edu.tw/releaseRedirect.do … ageID=3946
maybe one of them can fit in your needs.

Hope this helps.

Becky[/quote]
Becky, are you still around? I wonder if there is some development down south in Kaohsiung. Both of the links are dead. Could you recheck and repost? Thank you very much Becky.

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[quote=“LAguy”][quote=“beckypeiyu”]Hi, I’m new here.
I happened to have some information about your question.
Please check this out: taiwanwhatsup.immigration.gov.tw … blishNo=52 Foreign students eligible for public school enrollment 外籍人士子女在台就學 選擇多元化

This is one of the topics that our newsletter used to cover. However, all these schools in the newsletter are in Taipei or Hsinchu.
In Kaohsiung, unfortunately, I just called and asked the Education Bureau in the city government, they don’t have this kind of “Language Education Classes” in the public schools.

I found a web link to all the international schools in Kaohsiung: boe.kh.edu.tw/releaseRedirect.do … ageID=3946
maybe one of them can fit in your needs.

Hope this helps.

Becky[/quote]
Becky, are you still around? I wonder if there is some development down south in Kaohsiung. Both of the links are dead. Could you recheck and repost? Thank you very much Becky.[/quote]

There’s something up with those links. This seems to be the correct first one anyway:
immigration.gov.tw/public/ep … 671.pdf#e1

This one is close to the second one (I mean it’s somewhere on that site): kh.edu.tw/releaseRedirect.do … ageID=3822

106

[quote=“kaipakati”]Hi Petrichor,
Wow! Great report!

Shame that Datun was closed on the day you were supposed to visit again. Yes, they ARE poor in resources, but SOOOOO rich in warmth and family feeling. We never experienced any negative effects from the lacks. As you say, we can provide all the extra’s ourselves.

I can strongly assure you, the school has NOTHING against taking foreign students with no Chinese. They have an official open policy, and most if not all of the teachers there are extremely supportive. Especially if the child is starting in Grade 1, for the reason you mention. They’re just starting to learn and use pobomofo, so it’s a perfect time to start. My daughter started in grade four, and it was much harder, because they were already beginning to change over to characters without the pobomofo, so she mostly had to learn from earlier books, hence the need for more special classes and one on one teaching.

The English teacher (if she’s still the same one) does come across as kind of stiff and standoffish. I think she’s just shy, fairly junior in the school, and very concerned about whether her English is correct enough. lol. She’s sweet really though.
You’ll be needing to see the student welfare/enrolments person, who is warm and friendly and speaks only a liiiitle English… and they’ll ask the English teacher, or someone, to translate, if neccessary.

Best of luck![/quote]
I am so envied with the schools you have in Taipei. I bet there must be such schools in Kaohsiung area as it is the same nation, the same policy.

107

[quote=“irishstu”][quote=“LAguy”][quote=“beckypeiyu”]Hi, I’m new here.
I happened to have some information about your question.
Please check this out: taiwanwhatsup.immigration.gov.tw … blishNo=52 Foreign students eligible for public school enrollment 外籍人士子女在台就學 選擇多元化

This is one of the topics that our newsletter used to cover. However, all these schools in the newsletter are in Taipei or Hsinchu.
In Kaohsiung, unfortunately, I just called and asked the Education Bureau in the city government, they don’t have this kind of “Language Education Classes” in the public schools.

I found a web link to all the international schools in Kaohsiung: boe.kh.edu.tw/releaseRedirect.do … ageID=3946
maybe one of them can fit in your needs.

Hope this helps.

Becky[/quote]
Becky, are you still around? I wonder if there is some development down south in Kaohsiung. Both of the links are dead. Could you recheck and repost? Thank you very much Becky.[/quote]

There’s something up with those links. This seems to be the correct first one anyway:
immigration.gov.tw/public/ep … 671.pdf#e1

This one is close to the second one (I mean it’s somewhere on that site): kh.edu.tw/releaseRedirect.do … ageID=3822[/quote]
Thank you for your information.
The subject school in the Whatsup article is in Hsinchu. When I check the website of the school, I only found enrollment brochure and the like in Chinese!
The website of Kaohsiung Education Department has very limited info in English.

108

I know one poster who sent his kid there and one poster who went to school there. Their experiences don’t match yours.[/quote]

I helped out a person who used to work there. Apparently the curriculum’s quite behind what it should be for grade levels and whatnot. [/quote]
Again, their experiences don’t match yours. True, only one parent and one alumni. One’s kid is on the fast track at a good US university now, the other has her degree from a good Canadian uni. The kid got into uni a year early, too. So that doesn’t seem to jibe with your experience, either.[/quote]

Are you two talking about the same place? I think tsukinodeynatsu might be talking about the one in Kaohsiung and Sandman about the one in Taipei.[/quote]
Do you mean the one in Kaohsiung is the bad one and the one in Taipei is the good one?

109

[quote=“Petrichor”][quote=“annually in KHH”]I am a Canadian with a taiwanese wife. We both kive and work in Vancouver bc (richmond) and are planning on have 2 kids that we wouldlike to move back to Taiwan for grade school to raise our children and kids of the world and give them the oppertunity to have both worlds, cultures and families as part of their lives.

What happens when moving into taiwan school system at a you age? What entrance requirements, or if mom is a taiwnese…can they just shownup for public school?

Thanks for all the advice and life exp of all the people above.[/quote]

If your wife has a Taiwanese passport I’m pretty sure you can just show up at a public school. If not, the process of getting ID numbers for your children should be straightforward and probably the school will accept them anyway while you get their numbers sorted out. You need to be living in the same area for most schools.[/quote]
In your case, how long did it take to get your kid an ID (ARC) from the date they arrived in Taiwan? Did they come to Taiwan with you or a later date? Thanks

110

[quote=“LAguy”]Hello everyone! And Hello Petrichor, I’ve read most of your comments in the past FOUR YEARS.
I must confess that I was scared by most of recommendation not to move to Taiwan as my kids would not fit in the education system in 2010.
So I made a temporary decision to move to Vietnam as my wife does speak Vietnamese. Life here is pretty good for all of us and it has been 4 years. But my Vietnam chapter is about to be over. Taiwan will be 90% the next destination.

My situation got worse. My kids will be 13 and 11 by next fall semester. I’ve returned to the Forum and read the related posts during past 3 months and felt helpless again.

Petrichor, would you be so kind enough to elaborate more on your kids’ school life since 2012 when you went to Taiwan. How fast did they pick up the language? How well did they react to possible discrimination in school? How did the school and teachers help? You know, these kinds of questions. You are the only one that had positive thought on the issue. I hope I can learn from your real life experience during your past 2 years in Taiwan. To refresh you a bit, if I moved to Taiwan next year, I would be in Kaohsiung area which means lower cost of living but less choice of schools. I’d also like to enroll my children in public schools so they can learn Chinese and learn the good deeds for their future as you pointed out in this and other posts. My kids went to a bilingual school in Vietnam and were quite comfortable picking up Vietnamese and they did not find serious problem as my wife does speak the language and she also provides home schooling in some certain subjects. But they are now much older than 3 years ago to start new school in a new country (sadly again).

For international and bilingual schools, I have done a search and come up with the following schools. Does anyone know information as to their current creditability and ranking? Any information will be very helpful.

  1. Chung-Hwa Bilingual Elementary School of Arts
  2. Cambridge international Bilingual Elementary School
  3. Kaohsiung St.Paul’s high school
  4. KIVAM Junior High School
  5. I-shou International School (E-DA)
  6. Kaohsiung American school
  7. Morrison Academy Kaohsiung
  8. Dominican International School Kaohsiung

I welcome all other posters to help me with your new inputs, information. I hope situation has changed much, as Petrichor had said, and thank you very much.[/quote]

Hi LAguy Great to hear from you again. To answer the question in your last post first, it took us about 4 to 6 weeks to sort out our ARCs after arrival, and my son’s school at the time were happy to take him on the promise of a forthcoming ARC.

I’m sorry I have to echo the pessimism of the other posters about putting your children in public schools at this stage. I will briefly tell you my son’s experience. The only discrimination he has encountered at school has been positive - mostly other children wanting to be his friend because their parents have told them to - to practise English or just general ‘specialness’ presumably. He also gets an easy ride on his scores because he’s a foreigner so can’t be expected to do as well as the other children. He was slower to pick up Chinese than I’d thought he would be, taking about a year before really saying much. That could just be him, though, because he was slow to speak as a toddler as well.

Academically, he’s on a par with the other students in maths, science and, of course, English, but he struggles with Chinese literacy and social science (because this requires a certain level of literacy). In fact, just tonight I contacted a friend to help find a private tutor to give him some support. This is to improve his scores, but purely for his confidence’s sake. His Chinese is fine for everyday functioning at school and playing etc, he’s making progress and there’s no doubt he’ll complete Elementary school with functional spoken and written Chinese. BUT, we aren’t Taiwanese so learning Chinese isn’t part of his cultural heritage, he won’t be going to a local middle school, and he doesn’t have to live the rest of his life in Taiwan. If any of these were the case, his Chinese would need more work.

From our experience I would say that 8 years old is the absolute cusp of feasibility for introducing a foreign child to the local Taiwanese education system. Chinese literacy is achieved by hundreds and hundreds of hours of work. The child must first learn to understand spoken Chinese before literacy will make much sense or stick at all in his mind. While my son was picking up spoken Chinese, his peers were learning hundreds of characters. We dropped him a grade to make it easier on him. Taiwanese friends tell me that most literacy is learned in Elementary school. If your children start at their age, they will be put into remedial classes, where it’s very unlikely they will receive much useful support. How will they make up for 6 years of Chinese literacy learning? That’s the question you must ask yourself

I’m sorry to be so negative, LAguy, but I think it’s important you understand what you would be asking of them. I would look into alternative schooling of some kind if I were you, such as homeschooling, or, as a friend was telling me the other day, internet schooling.

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Is there a possibility of sending them to an expensive international school for a year while working on their language skills, then transferring them to a local school for the next year? It will be hard on the kids to switch around schools (and friends) like that, but not any harder than moving from country to country.

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Petrichor: thank you for your long story. How old is your kid now? What grade is he in? If I’m not mistaken, your case has turned out to be not as you expected in public school? In fact I am considering bilingual school now, less expensive than American schools. I’ll fly over and try to visit all schools.

Hokwongwei: that’s definitely an option. Thank you.

113

[quote=“LAguy”]Petrichor: thank you for your long story. How old is your kid now? What grade is he in? If I’m not mistaken, your case has turned out to be not as you expected in public school? In fact I am considering bilingual school now, less expensive than American schools. I’ll fly over and try to visit all schools.

Hokwongwei: that’s definitely an option. Thank you.[/quote]

In our case it’s turned out fine. As I said, my son’s Chinese is good enough to function and be happy at school and he’ll retain a good level for the rest of his life, providing he keeps using it. When I said he struggles with Chinese literacy, I mean his test scores are in the 70s, rather than the 90s as they should be. With additional support he can probably bump them into the 80s. But it was definitely a big challenge for him to catch up after missing the first two years of Elementary. This isn’t just because Chinese isn’t his first language. I have Taiwanese friends who took their children to the UK for 2 years and their daughter missed grade 3 and 4. They continued speaking Chinese at home but didn’t teach her reading or writing. When they returned to Taiwan she couldn’t cope with the work at school at all and it took her until the end of high school to catch up - after missing just 2 years. Their son missed grade 1 and 2, and they managed to catch him up to his classmates by working with him until 11 pm at night for a year. There aren’t shortcuts with Chinese literacy.

My son is 10 and attending grade 4. He should be in grade 5, but his birthday is late August so he’s very young in that year and with the additional Chinese burden it made sense to drop a grade. Bilingual schools would probably be a good idea for your kids. At least then they would be able to do something. My son’s problem in the early stages was that he had nothing to do and he’d go crazy with boredom. Teachers use the same materials for all children regardless of whether they can understand them or not. The onus is on the parent to make sure the child can do the work, through enrolling them in buxiban or whatever. I noticed Zender mentioned your children could do the maths, but many problems are word-based, so my son couldn’t even do much of that subject to start off with (plus his first teacher wouldn’t give him the test papers, but that’s another story).

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[quote=“Petrichor”][quote=“LAguy”]Petrichor: thank you for your long story. How old is your kid now? What grade is he in? If I’m not mistaken, your case has turned out to be not as you expected in public school? In fact I am considering bilingual school now, less expensive than American schools. I’ll fly over and try to visit all schools.

Hokwongwei: that’s definitely an option. Thank you.[/quote]

In our case it’s turned out fine. As I said, my son’s Chinese is good enough to function and be happy at school and he’ll retain a good level for the rest of his life, providing he keeps using it. When I said he struggles with Chinese literacy, I mean his test scores are in the 70s, rather than the 90s as they should be. With additional support he can probably bump them into the 80s. But it was definitely a big challenge for him to catch up after missing the first two years of Elementary. This isn’t just because Chinese isn’t his first language. I have Taiwanese friends who took their children to the UK for 2 years and their daughter missed grade 3 and 4. They continued speaking Chinese at home but didn’t teach her reading or writing. When they returned to Taiwan she couldn’t cope with the work at school at all and it took her until the end of high school to catch up - after missing just 2 years. Their son missed grade 1 and 2, and they managed to catch him up to his classmates by working with him until 11 pm at night for a year. There aren’t shortcuts with Chinese literacy.

My son is 10 and attending grade 4. He should be in grade 5, but his birthday is late August so he’s very young in that year and with the additional Chinese burden it made sense to drop a grade. Bilingual schools would probably be a good idea for your kids. At least then they would be able to do something. My son’s problem in the early stages was that he had nothing to do and he’d go crazy with boredom. Teachers use the same materials for all children regardless of whether they can understand them or not. The onus is on the parent to make sure the child can do the work, through enrolling them in buxiban or whatever. I noticed Zender mentioned your children could do the maths, but many problems are word-based, so my son couldn’t even do much of that subject to start off with (plus his first teacher wouldn’t give him the test papers, but that’s another story).[/quote]
Thank you very much for your confirmation. I have to visit all schools to make a final decision then. Have a great day everyone.

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Anyone lives in Kaohsiung? Seems an odd place for foreigners with kids.

1 Like
116

LAguy,
I don’t visit this forum often but remember you from years ago. I have 2 kids who started their primary education in the local schools, then moved on to international schools from grade 7 onwards. They are 13 and 14 now , just slightly older than your kids so I think I can give you a brief assessment of the requirements for the Chinese language in schools here. The local school starts teaching heavily in old Chinese ( 文言文）from grade 7 and the kids are required to write lengthy essays of at least 1000 words(?), not a bright idea for kids with 0 foundation.And ALL subjects except for the Eng. language, of course, would be conducted in Chinese, very very tough for a teenager. Success stories of foreign kids ‘transplanting’ well usually happens to those in elementary. I am sure your kids would pick up the language very quickly, but to understand the subtleties especially in the olden language is another thing.
I would suggest you start them out in a good international school, then move on to the local system if and when they are ready. My kids are in the Grace Academy and Taipei European school respectively, and contrary to popular beliefs, these schools do offer very good Chinese classes.
For schools in Kaoshiong, I have heard good things about the Morrison Academy.
Good luck.

117

[quote=“asianmom”]LAguy,
I don’t visit this forum often but remember you from years ago. I have 2 kids who started their primary education in the local schools, then moved on to international schools from grade 7 onwards. They are 13 and 14 now , just slightly older than your kids so I think I can give you a brief assessment of the requirements for the Chinese language in schools here. The local school starts teaching heavily in old Chinese ( 文言文）from grade 7 and the kids are required to write lengthy essays of at least 1000 words(?), not a bright idea for kids with 0 foundation.And ALL subjects except for the Eng. language, of course, would be conducted in Chinese, very very tough for a teenager. Success stories of foreign kids ‘transplanting’ well usually happens to those in elementary. I am sure your kids would pick up the language very quickly, but to understand the subtleties especially in the olden language is another thing.
I would suggest you start them out in a good international school, then move on to the local system if and when they are ready. My kids are in the Grace Academy and Taipei European school respectively, and contrary to popular beliefs, these schools do offer very good Chinese classes.
For schools in Kaoshiong, I have heard good things about the Morrison Academy.
Good luck.[/quote]
Thank you so much asianmom. Yes, I started this thread in 2010 but then I moved to Vietnam instead thanked to you and other posters 4 years ago. But now it seems destined to me to come to Taiwan. I am an university professor and it will be a public university in Kaohsiung area. That is why I am a bit concerned with tuition and fees for my 2 kids in international schools. There are not so many good and reputable schools in Kaohsiung. I have them all in my list. And I do hear of negative things about Morrison. I do imagine it is absolutely impossible for my 13 to be son to start 8th grade in a local middle school. I also have a kist of 3-4 bilingual schools that I had good recommendation from Taiwanese friends. But you know, their perspective on “good things” of these schools might be very different.
So I have decided I will visit all of the school in the next couple of months, before the Chinese New Year. The bad thing is most of the information on the website of those bilingual schools are in Chinese and I am not sure if international phone calls may help get more information.
Perhaps, the expat families in Kaohiung did not join this Forum.
Thank you again.

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For what it’s worth, I recently met a senior from one of the Morrison Academies who was applying for admission to top universities in the US. The student was bright, open-minded, and seemed to have developed a fairly open mind despite the school’s fairly strict Christian code of conduct which includes no dancing! I was surprised to learn that they had classes discussing atheism as a valid point of view to be respected if not agreed with and they seemed to read widely (Conrad, Dostoyevsky, etc). I suspect that a good education can be had there. Moreover, I think that many non-Christians would find at least as many things to disagree with in the Taiwanese schools. I hasten to add that I hear many good things about Taiwanese schools as well as bad things like the extreme exam pressure.

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Thank you Feiren. I meant I have no confirmed source of information on good things and bad things, so Morrison is on my visit list too. Hope the Almighty Lord will help.

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We put our kids in the summer programs organised by the schools before deciding which one to pick, cos I didn’t think my one visit was sufficient to gain enough insight to the school; just an idea.
By the way, except for TAS and TES, which has all sorts of extra funds added to their fees; most international schools’ fees are around 200-240k per semester, could be cheaper as one moves south.Also, we get a concession for the second kid in Grace Christian Academy.Just so you know, many of the parents in these international schools are not big earners either, it’s just a matter of priorities, I, for one, have to cost down on many other ‘necessities’ to afford the fees.