What is the average cost per month for regular, non-English immersion kindergartens in big cities like Taipei? Found extremely conflicting results online
I recall correctly, in new Taipei 30K+ is fancy, 20K+ is pretty standard, and 10K+ is bargain basement. All in NTD per month
Costs will vary considerably and high cost does not necessary equate to a good school. In new Taipei we pay 15K/mth for a very good Montessori with 6 month term fees of ~30K. We visited ~10 different kindergartens. The worst one we visited was on the 3rd floor of a building with small businesses above and below (bakeries and electronics assembly), inside was dirty, very poor access to fire escapes, it was also 15K a month. Another we visited was taught through English only, 30K+ per month and a substantial outlay for uniforms, books and what not, I stopped listening after about 50K+ of stuff was described. The kids lining up military style to wash their hands did not look like they were enjoying their day.
Unfortunately you’ll need to put leg work into finding a school and understanding prices, what other people consider good will not necessarily work for you or your child.
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What age can you start sending kids to kindergarten in Taiwan? I remember when I was a kid I went to to a pre-school from when I was virtually a newborn till I was 5. Do kindergartens accept babies in Taiwan? Would that be called daycare instead? How much does that cost?
the youngest kindergartens accept may be 2 yo. Babies go to daycares or babysitters usually till they reach 3yo. Daycares don’t newly accept kids already 2yo, though if they are already accepted, they can be there till they enter kindergartens at 3yo.
The cost of private daycare is about 18000~23000/month + 21000~23000 as red envelopes. Public daycare is 11000/month. In taipei.
Daycare we used took kids from a couple of months old until 3. As already stated they will only accept kids under 2 but they can stay until 3. The rules are very strict on age at acceptance and “graduation”. The younger the child the more expensive as the rules for child/teacher ratio are different. Make sure any daycare you chose has remote access to their CCTV that you can dial into with your cellphone, there have been a lot of incidences of less than acceptable care of children.
Have never given a red envelope to daycare or kindergarten.
Same here.
What’s the red envelop for?
Mandatory 節慶禮金 as listed in the 收費項目金額公告標準表 I linked above. One month tuition for end year, and 2000 each for dragon boat festival and mid autumn.
I’m not sure if I gave the two 2000s, but I had to pay the extra one month tuition at year end.
Weird, have never heard of it or had to provide it to a school, perhaps it was specific to the school you were using. Did you also have to pay a “term” fee every 6 months?
I’m not sure how it is standard, but all the daycares, only 2 though, and babysitters I asked clearly mentioned the year end red envelope, and it is listed in the daycare tuition standard by Taipei city government.
At the daycare my kid went, the term fee was divided by 12 and included in monthly fee.
This makes more sense
Curious, if you wouldn’t mind sharing the name. Or at least, was it one of the known buxiban-ish kindys?
How does the red envelopes factor into it? You give it to the staff at CNY, or is that a regular bribe to take care of your kid?
it is not a bribe, but an annual regular fee mentioned in the contract. It is like an opposite that employees get bonus at year end. We pay it to school, and I think it is the fund of bonus daycares pay to their employees.
If memory serves me correctly it was the “Lee Sisters” or something similar, in Xindian, was a few years ago when we visited. No idea it it’s well known or not.
It’s known to me, and it’s about the same. It’s not like the Happy Marians or similar which is what I had in mind.
That makes more sense, but it’s an odd way to do business. Most companies do give their employees the year-end red envelopes, but I don’t think I have to give one to Starbucks or 7-11.
it might be a custom brought from babysitters to daycare system. Parents pay bonus to babysitters.
I don’t know, though.
As far as l know, there is no such fee at kindergartens.