So my kids are at a private Taiwan school but seeing as they’re the only “foreigners” (American Taiwanese) they’re getting the boot next year…I reckon they aren’t too fond of folk who won’t be staying long and I reckon we looked the part haha.
Or maybe they met me in person and yeah….
So the wife and I are lookin’ at international schools in Kaohsiung. The three that popped up are Kaohsiung American School, Morrison Academy and I-Shou.
Does anyone have any opinions on them? My take so far is that
Kaohsiung American School gives a similar experience as an American school back home…and as much as I’d like that…I mean why not just go back to the US and put them in an American school there? The wife being Taiwanese isn’t too fond of the school finishing at 3pm either…
Morisson Academy is more to my liking: Christian…American…but again…why not go back stateside for that kind of education? And although we’re a Christian family and practice the teachings of Our Lord…I don’t want them to be sleeping with the bible under their pillow either…
I-shou looks more promising with its IB program (I did that program believe it or not and enjoyed the global perspective it provides) but I think it doesn’t have too many foreigners.
Does anyone have any updated takes on these schools? I’d be curious to know about the teachers’ take as well if any of y’all taught here.
Thanks in advance and Happy New Year! This 2026 is gonna be a doozy!
Morisson Academy I think is good. High(er) standards, most kids there want to go to good Uni’s (and do so, or at least where they want to), less of the “rich spoiled” kid. It is Christian, and doubt your kid will sleep with the bible (unless you want that), more likely sleeping thinking about math, ect….
DKaohsiung thanks for your feedback. Do you know if critical thinking is encouraged at that school? I dunno…I didn’t go to a bible school myself (although we did learn about religion at home) but I can’t shake the impression that it’ll be very dogmatic in nature. Is this accurate?
Should be fine as far as critical thinking (this is from students info, not me), it’s not very conservative religion school, but still has some religious classes
Kaohsiung American School’s tuition is insane. I forget exactly but something like 20k to 30k USD a year (that’s basically my whole annual income as a Uni instructor here). They also reject kids if their English isn’t perfect. My daughter is bilingual and her speech is perfect but her English reading and writing is perhaps a grade or two below her native speaking peers from the states, and they rejected her on that basis (we probably wouldn’t have enrolled anyway due to the small fortune the tuition cost, but we checked it out and weren’t that impressed). You also have to opt out of the Taiwanese system for good as they don’t do the standard exams that the Taiwanese public schools have students take, and that can create problems if you ever want to take your kid out of the international system and enroll them back in a Taiwanese public school. Also, we just got an elitist and snobby atmosphere from the faculty and student guides there. And as far as I could tell, there’s nothing that distinguishes the teachers and makes them worth the cost. They all seemed competent and qualified, but nothing about them was extraordinary.
The upside is a lot less homework and more of a project-based learning environment but imo the insane costs make it not worth it.
Yeah…we have some people in the know there and they said that it was because the school was afraid we wouldn’t stay forever at the school since we were an “international” family.
But such is the life for us half-casts (or mixed race depending on how you see it.).
it is unfortunate because their decision has nothing to do with my daughter’s behavior or academics…just her nationality(ies) and their perception that as semi-foreigners we would leave eventually.
C’est la vie and I think it just means that my children are destined for a more international community of other mixed race kids.
Yeah - caught us completely off guard lol. I mean if they wouldn’t take us in…sure…but to reject them after they’ve gotten accustomed to the school and have made friends…what a pity
The reason for rejection sounds like BS, come on lol, most of the kids in there are Taiwanese -whatever passport with less than perfect English one would have thought .
One might think about things such as money and connections being more important. Taipei American school was also notorious for this.
That Morrison school is also insanely expensive I heard.
That would be lawyer up time for me if I gave a shit.
The two examples above are REALLY not putting elite private education in a good light here, not that I’m saying public schools are good either, unfortunately they are not.
By the way one of those super expensive ‘elite’ school mentioned hires unqualified teachers to fill in as substitute foreign teachers at a few hundred NT bucks an hour…I know that for a fact. So you are paying 20 or 30k a year just in fees alone and the substitute teacher is not even a licensed teacher. Good one!!
Yes and it’s correct that you can’t get your kids into certain courses here such as medicine without doing the local exam. Kids can always do a masters overseas , it’s not necessary for kids to do bachelors to experience overseas education or to get work.
Well, I’m not making it up if that’s what you’re implying. She was tested in all areas of English and failed the writing portion. They said if they had less students they could afford extra resources to catch her up, but they didn’t that year. Not sure what else you want me to say.
It sounds to me like they didn’t understand how rapidly a naturally bilingual student could improve in writing, even without extra resources. Possibly failed her on “less students”. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
EDIT: Or, more likely, they didn’t get the whiff of cash off you. I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to me when my daughter got turned down by TES.
It’s fine. In retrospect it would’ve bankrupted us, and the only benefit is they wouldn’t punish her with endless exams and homework like the Taiwanese schools… which is a big benefit, but we’ll probably move back to the west in a couple years where you can get into a public school that isn’t that different anyway. I also couldn’t pinpoint exactly where all that money would go anyway. The classrooms were modern, sure, but the teachers that I met weren’t anything special like I said.
They told you that?