CAVEAT: Given my very poor knowledge of Chinese, the document linked below could be about bicycle safety or dental hygiene, but I think there’s some chance that it has something to do with the New Taipei City cram school regs:
I couldn’t find a student-number floor (for a cram school) or ceiling (for a non-cram school), but that sort of thing is probably best left to someone with actual knowledge of Chinese.
My bad for not clarifying that. It’s been a while, and I don’t like to speak hyperbolically. After the big KTV fires in Taichung in 1995, and the forgotten kid(s) (nearly?) dying in the back of Kindergarten vans on hot days. I’m old, so everyone under 30 is a kid, so “Young people” is probably more exact than “Kids” I suppose. At the time, in Taichung at any rate, it seemed like this kind of stuff was a weekly occurrence, fires, accidents. There was a crackdown on illegal schools and illegal teachers. Legal schools were screwing over illegal schools and reporting them. Going legal was the trend. The FAP would be at the Chinese language schools making sure foreigners were actually IN class and not just out teaching. These events didn’t change things overnight, but the group of folks I hung out with were constantly talking about their schools/Kindies getting “raided”, hiding in back rooms, going out windows etc. My take on this is that they were doing this not to get whitey, but to check up on the schools, in order to prevent a massacre.
Now, I am not saying that the government had a direct focus on the illegal buxibans. It was more widespread than that. In Ying Ge, in 2000 maybe, two kids were crushed by a huge truck, and backed over for good measure. Then big trucks weren’t allowed to drive down that road next to the schools. I believe they changed the “back up over them so you don’t have to pay medical bills forever” thing with a law as well.
Anyway, again. My bad for not being clear. But that’s it. Not going to dig up horrors from the past just to earn cred points on the flob.
Congratulations! That is exactly the right document.
Unofficial translation:
What this regulation calls a short-term buxiban (hereinafter called a buxiban) means an organization conducting short-term supplementary education, with a fixed location, openly [or externally] recruiting students and collecting fees; its establishment and management, other than as provided for in other laws and regulations, is provided for in accordance with this regulation.
So there we have it, from the New Taipei City Department of Education: a buxiban has no minimum student population. Is there a maximum?
You can have no more than 60 students in one class, but you can combine classes up to 120 students “in principle”, provided that the municipal government is satisfied with your safety measures.
Buxiban classrooms, equipment, and teacher qualifications should be in accordance with the ages of the recruited students, in conformity with the provisions of The Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act and other laws and regulations…
That law doesn’t settle the question, but it does clearly give the education authorities jurisdiction. If we go back to the kindergarten law i.e. the Early Childhood Education and Care Act, we get the rules for kindergartens (or “preschools”) and the penalties for running a de facto kindergarten without registration. Also, if we go to the regulations made under that law, we get the prohibition on English classes.
So if we’re not missing anything important here, the question is, does your buxiban act as a de facto kindergarten? And evidently the DOE inspectors look for food and bedding when they want to decide that, but I’m not aware of anything other than (non-binding) precedent to stop them from using other factors to determine whether or not you’re running a de facto kindergarten.
Stumbled across this post. Please reference some newspaper articles and whether or not those schools were run by foreign spouses.
I’ve read the paper everyday and honestly can only remember reading about the tragedies of kids being left in school vans on hot days
Edit:
There is no real Western version of "local news’ in Taiwan. Many of the injuries to children I heard about were from foreign and Taiwanese teachers after hours or before, if it were your own school.
Only the big ones or ones where people couldn’t afford or didn’t know how to or have the resources to get it taken care of…were ever reported in the papers or national news, and even if they did, many stories were buried and died. We all remained gainfully employed.
That was in direct response to a post that contained the info on dead kids piling up. I can’t seem to find it. It said something like I have no sympathy for foreigners opening their own school like the OP
because…
As for relevancy. All data is useful.
Yes, there was no version of Western News. It was like classic Muck Raking News on Steroids. I was here…,
They’d stick a camera in everyone’s face. Show private and bad taste photos and I actually spent a good 3 minutes watching some dead high school girl in Kaohsiung flopping around as she was being put into an ambulance on afternoon TV news. You could not see a face or even a very clear picture but just what we saw was shocking enough.
I am skeptical because I’ve read about almost every bad thing happening in Taiwan from pyrotechnic disasters to babies being thrown into hot oil and kids being left in hot vans. If there was a big kindergarten disaster brought on by gross negligence then we would have read about it.
It really shouldn’t be hard for the OP to set up something that he wants legally. I did. I had the smallest legal cram school you can get. It took up two floors of our 4 story house and we still were able to use it as a living area. It was mainly used so I could teach my kids and their classmates in the village I lived in. Why was it not under the table? That is another story…
We just needed portable fire extinguishers, and escape wire, emergency lighting that worked great during Typhoons. The police and fire people came a few times a year and there was a fire prevention firm that serviced the equipment.
That one…
Really… The school day ends at 12 noon 4 days a week up to third grade. 1st grade is young enough. And you can immerse them in English all you want. I had my kids understanding bugs Bunny Jokes, following recipe in English and doing science experiments.
Perhaps the preschool rules should be more liberal to allow some all English instruction.
I was not in it for the money. I was kind of abused by my employer years ago and the only way a person could be left alone, unless you were one of the special uncles in the village was to have a license.
My main role is stay at home Dad.
they, the government, now regulate previous preschools and kindergartens by the same rules, so no distinction between them (幼托整合, they had been doing it for years, and I think it is completed now.). Daycares for babies or kindergartens for toddlers. Or buxibans with no nap no meal.
One kid roasting in a van is a disaster. Two or three is a pile. I never said spectacle, although I did mention that I was there right after the big KTV fire where the bodies were lined up on the road.
Too change the subject slightly. My school is closed and my job now is to take care of the family in the evening.
Outside of tutoring I do miss the classroom experience but I’m only free to work in the day or afternoon.
Can I or can I not appear in kindergarten and daycare centers doing an act like making pancakes or arts and crafts in all English.
I did it when my children were in preschools but that I guess that was anallowed since I was the parent.
So what are the rules exactly.
Am I allowed to entertain children younger than first grade or do I have to stick my teaching to first grade and over in daycare/anchin bans.
Where can I not teach?
Permanent Resident/Open permit yada yada yada. so if my question seems weird I live in the middle of nowhere where I seldom see a foreign face
I think you may be able to do some performances or lectures for kids not as an employee but as an invited person without those qualifications, but I’m not very sure.
I finally got my buxiban license this week. It’s been a tough year without the ability to advertise and attract more students. All said, it took us 9 months to renovate the location and get it inspected. Happy days