I think it’s entirely the schools that are to blame. That and the naivete of some newly arrived teachers who I suppose simply trust the school that “it’ll be OK” without checking for themselves. I mean come on – how many times have you seen folk complain on here about some legal problem with the “but I didn’t know” spiel?[/quote]
I agree. The teachers only bring light to the school’s wrongdoing, and the teachers don’t have anything legal to stand on: “How can you charge me for illegal teaching when the school illegally hired me?” If a cop sees a guy getting high after buying a dime bag from another guy, what, the smoker can say, “But HE sold it to me! Arrest him! He’s the bad guy!”
I think the government is doing fine stamping down on schools that hire illegally. The ONLY thing that will change the whole situation is to hit the schools in the pocketbook.
Simple, really. They tell you they need you next week. If you don’t show, they go on to the next applicant. You have to agree to employment in order to get the process underway. You can’t do that with most places who are looking for a teacher ASAP. You end up in a conundrum where you want to be legal, but can’t without agreeing to work when the school wants you to (and thus being illegal for a while). I can’t believe that this is news to anyone here on this forum. It’s how the majority of teachers are hired, as a matter of fact. [/quote]
If ALL propective teachers refused to work before the ARC was in their hands then this situation would not exist, it only exists because some people are either desperate or naive of the situation, both are generally of their own making.
The system here creates a situation where many teachers are compelled to work illegally. I don’t think it’s right for the government to target these people for deportation and I definitely don’t agree that it is Taiwan’s officials doing their jobs efficiently when this happens. The government needs to take a pragmatic approach to this and realise the realities of this industry. They need to grant a grace period during the applicaton process wherein a teacher can work legally while their application is being processed. Continuation of legal employment would hinge on approval for their work permit. Their failure to do this leaves scads of decent people exposed to having their lives and livelihoods in Taiwan ruined for no good reason at all, IMHO.
Sorry, I don’t agree that the government is even slightly in the right in this case of deportation.[/quote]
It is the schools and the teachers that have created the current situation, not the government. The rules are simple, work before an ARC is in your hand and you risk deportation. If the teacher allows the school to pressure or bully them into working illegally then sorry, the risk is known.
Why should the government allow a grace period, other countries generally dont, you have to wait until the application has been processed before you can work, get caught working and out you go, Taiwan’s rules are no different to anyone elses.
With the larger fines for schools now being brought in, it should as some of them get fined start making the others look at their practises, but then again this is Taiwan.
I have to agree entirely with Toasty on this one. I think the blame falls squarely on the feet of the government here.
In this situation, they do not have any clear, definable laws which the schools or teachers should follow.
Why do teachers even need to come to Taiwan on a visitor visa to begin with? That starts the whole process with a big, fat lie. Yet, it’s the government who has created that situation.
The regulations surrounding the English teaching industry here are vague and don’t always make a lot of sense. It’s not fair to either the teacher, or the school.
If they would create a “multipurpose visa”, to allow people to start their Taiwan experience without lying and saying that they are only coming for vacation, that would be best. Korea has something similar.
I’m not even going to get into the kindergarten thing, which is absolutely absurd. Every Taiwanese person should be embarrassed about how that is handled.
I love this country and things are mostly good here. However, the government could take a lot of steps to improve this situation and it wouldn’t be very hard.
The problem of course, is that working and waiting was the norm and almost no one previously had a problem. Now it is clearly an issue.
As for people working illegally, there is that, as there always has been, as the reality is there is the demand. However, what number of people getting nabbed are just like the OP, who wanders into a job applies for a work permit, that he later obtains, but is nabbed before he gets it in his hot little hands? That’s bureacracy gone completely insane.
By contrast, I arrived here in HK, started work the next day on a tourist visa and did what most people do in Taiwan, ie, worked while waiting for my application to come through. I can assure you that if there was any hint of wrong-doing, there would have been absolutely no way in the world my company would have allowed it. Personally, I took their word for it.
Maybe I’ve been spoilt by the sanity of HK’s relatively easier visa stuff, though that too isn’t true for all!.
I reckon I qualify for that, and I would’ve/could’ve been nabbed. Seriously, I thought once the paper work was in you were right . . in fact I vaguely recall asking exactly that at a foreign afront police station and being told (typically wrongly I hasten to note) that it was cool.
I don’t blame the teachers at all in this case. Straight out of school, overseas for the first time, land what seems to be a nice job, of course the temptation is to take your new boss on trust.
Shame on the bosses for exploiting that trust I say.
one, i think it makes sense that you have to wait - some people are actually turned down. that’s part of the reason for the application process.
in this case however, the OP may be able to make a play because of this:
who was phoned? does your school have a name of said person? if they are called again, what can be done? (i know - quite possibly the answer is nothing.) i think your best chance of making a stink about this is to play this angle. if you were truly already processed, i think that you have a (firm) leg to stand on …
[quote]I don’t blame the teachers at all in this case. Straight out of school, overseas for the first time, land what seems to be a nice job, of course the temptation is to take your new boss on trust.
Shame on the bosses for exploiting that trust I say.[/quote]
i totally agree but O.P. mentioned he has been here for a year and a half… could he possibly know what can happen in this kind of situations?
administration and gov. are to blame for not applying the laws and for the lack of communication between different ministeries. each branch or office is literally on its own in the tw administration… it always amazes me!
When I came here 6 years ago I only had a 2 week visitors visa from South-Africa. It was terrible! I still don’t know who did who to get me an ARC that quickly.
I think the government might think foreign English teachers just have it too easy when other nationalities of workers are treated like slaves. And if that’s true, then it explains why deporting someone means nothing to them. So what? You’re just a foreign worker. There are loads of them behind you waiting for your job. What have we got, 200,000 foreign labourers here? Who actually pay for the privilege of coming to work here and become the property of their employers? And you, what, couldn’t wait a week for your papers to come through? Perhaps there is an element of that, I don’t know.
Up until about a year ago I had never heard of anyone getting kicked out because they were “caught” in between the submission of papers and getting the work permit. However, the principle is still that you can’t work without permission. our permission is your work permit, and if that was dated on the day you were nicked (or before) you’re legally in the clear. The change of visa type and obtaining an ARC are procedural tasks. Your permission dates from the date of your work permit and your employer is supposed to give you the original.
who was phoned? does your school have a name of said person? if they are called again, what can be done? (I know - quite possibly the answer is nothing.) I think your best chance of making a stink about this is to play this angle. if you were truly already processed, I think that you have a (firm) leg to stand on …
You might be legally in the clear, but you aren’t necessarily in the clear in reality. They can still choose to throw you out, as appears to be happening recently.
If this was actually applied only to schools who are letting teachers work illegally, I would believe that this is the purpose of the law and the reason why it’s being enforced.
But the fact that you can be deported for not holding your ARC in your hand when they arrive (though you may have one), or for working though you have not yet received your ARC (though you have applied for it and the paperwork is being processed), tells me that the purpose of this entire exercise is not to weed out the illegal teachers.
If it were to weed out the teachers who aren’t interested in working legally, then they wouldn’t be having a field day deporting all those who hold a valid ARC or who have applied for one.
I think this is about making money, rather than upholding law.
You might be legally in the clear, but you aren’t necessarily in the clear in reality. They can still choose to throw you out, as appears to be happening recently.[/quote]
Yes, and as you have no right of appeal it’s just a matter of guanxi, or not.
You might be legally in the clear, but you aren’t necessarily in the clear in reality. They can still choose to throw you out, as appears to be happening recently.[/quote]
Yes, and as you have no right of appeal it’s just a matter of guanxi, or not.[/quote]
The fact that teachers who have applied to teach legally are being deported without even an opportunity of appeal shows that this has nothing to do with law and order.