The story smells fishy to me, too, but nothing is impossible here.
Many years ago after I lost my driver’s license, the folks at DMV on Pa-teh Road couldn’t find my license data in their system. Finally, they led me to a back storage room full of filing cabinets and broken furniture. The clerk pointed to a cabinet and said all of the foreigners’ license data was inside. She said to look through each 4 X 6 card until I found mine. It took a couple of hours. There seemed to be no order, not alphabetical, chronological, or any system that I could figure out. No one watched me as a I pawed through the cabinet. I finally found my own filing card. I saw the data for literally thousands of foreign drivers in the process.
Can you imagine that happening in your native country?
It might be a true story, but I doubt it. I’ve been told so many bullshit stories by foreign derelicts that I can’t even remember them all. In all likelihood, he ratted out someone else and had to make up a story to explain why the police hadn’t deported him.
In other words, kick-stand, since he told this story to you, I’d be careful. Desperate people might tell the police anything, whether or not it’s true. Just how good of a friend is this person?
If this poll reflects a random sampling of foreigners, then it’s quite possible that this among all the other bullshit out there about everyone having fake degrees is indeed false. Then again, most of the people who post on here aren’t revolving door cowboys so it’s likely that they would be more honest and have more reasons to want to stay legal than someone who was just looking to make a quick buck and wouldn’t be here long enough for someone to even fill out deportation papers.
However, if someone were to get a sampling of people on tealit, the numbers would probably be the exact opposite. Perhaps there should be a single website with a mix of both real teachers and the clowns pretending to be teachers. Maybe we could call it tealumosa.com
This guy is a good friend of mine. I totally trust him…he’s pulled through for me in the past on a couple of occasions.
The ‘missing info’ here is this: he is a confrontational person, a young hot head. He is also handsome…he has been a model both in Canada and Taiwan. Anyway…he started dating this siaujay who went gaga over him. And guess who SHE was? Her dad was like best friends with the Deputy Mayor of Taipei. No kidding.
So…anyway…long story short…he and this guy at work HATED each other. It simmered for about 6 months then finally his arch rival ratted him out and he actually did get arrested for teaching with a fake degree. He had like 30 hours to get outta the country or prove that his degree was real. He was shitting himself.// Then he called his gf (crying). The she called her dad (crying). Slowly but surely…the whole case against him evaporated and he had to do that sifting-through-diplomas task and was back at work on Monday.
I actually do still HAVE the business card of the dept. and the fellow at Ministry of Education where he did the sifting. This story is true.
I’m surprised at the result so far. Where I’m working now, at an adult chain, I’ve already met three teachers who have mentioned their degrees are fake, and that they were nervous about being found out (but then I wondered why they were telling people in the first place).
Dunno about fake fakes, but I’m “finishing up” (if I don’t tell them to go jump off a cliff in the process) a MA in Taiwan, and the thesis committee has just “informed” me (less than 1 week before the defense) that “the methodology is not acceptable” and the “statistics are flawed”.
This is the same research and statistical design which I used to obtain a MA and a Ph.D. in the US, at a fairly well-known and well-regarded (but fortunately cheap!! ) university. (You know, reduce, recycle, reuse…)
So, I tend to believe that this degree will have something of the “fake” about it (should I manage to get the diploma without killing someone.) The only way to shove the thesis through committee is to change it so that it really IS flawed (mind you, I’ll do it, who cares at this point?) Would a “real” fake necessarily be worth less than this ? I’m not sure. But these are professors in the Taiwanese university system. :bravo:
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]I still don’t buy this ‘he sorted through the degrees and told them which ones were fake’ story for tow reasons.
How the hell did he know which ones were fake?
The MOE could check them themselves if they wanted. It’s not hard, I’ve done it myself,
Brian[/quote]
It’s a load of total bullshit – at best, all the MOE would have are photocopies – they don’t keep your original degree. Plus, as Bri says, how can this young guy possibly know which are real and which are fake?
Plus, why on earth would a Taipei City official have any business whatsoever screwing around in a central government organ such as the MOE?
Plus, this is a total urban myth that I’ve heard at least 20 times in the 16 years I’ve been here.
[quote=“Bu Lai En”]I still don’t buy this ‘he sorted through the degrees and told them which ones were fake’ story for tow reasons.
How the hell did he know which ones were fake?
The MOE could check them themselves if they wanted. It’s not hard, I’ve done it myself,
Brian[/quote]
I was just about to post this but I’ve been saved the trouble. So what’s the secret? How’d he do it? Since he’s your friend, why not have him post the details himself. It should be interesting. Everyone here is waiting with bated breath
Yes they do. People get ARCs with fakes degrees (rhymes ). I don’t know about bought fake degrees, but I know people that did the photocopy trick and have gotten an ARC (not me).
The answer to your fisrt questions is that they can be bought or made (from someone elses or from scratch).
A lot of people just create their own diplomas from universities that do not exist…using their computers…this is the better way, because then you can’t get charged with fraud if your home university finds out.
And of course you can just buy diplomas over the internet.// About 1/2 of the ARC holders I know in Taiwan have fake degrees.
The guy whose job it is at the MOE in Taipei is probably under pressure to approve as many English teachers as possible for obvious economic reasons.
If all the fake English teachers were kicked out, I wonder if the hourly rate of pay would go up? Probably not.
When I worked in Kaohsiung, I had to submit my degree original, but they returned it.// In Taipei, you only have to submit a photocopy. And NO the MOE NEVER CHECKS UP ON THE VALIDITY OF THE DEGREES unless there is a complaint. They only check=up if there is a complaint…I don’t know what’s so hard about calling a university and asking a simple question…but they. do. not. check. it. They just keep it on file.
My friend just removed the degrees that were OBVIOUSLY AND APPARENTLY fake upon sight to Canadian that grew up in Canada: he removed diplomas that had titles like, “The University of Canada” (still snickering over that one)…‘The Traditional College of Ottawa’…he also removed degrees that have majors that don’t exist in Canada, such as “B.Sc Pre-Med”
The reason a teacher might submit a degree with a fake major or a fake name (of school) is because it is a serious offense to submit a fraudulent degree (the school can pursue the case, even if overseas).
OH, I just remembered something important about this story: my friend was only sifting through the Canadians’ stacks. Sorry I left that out…that’s important.
I think it is absolutely sick and pathetic that most school owners in Taiwan would rather have a North American with a fake degree than a South African with a real degree. What does that say about the level of integrity they seek in their teachers? These school owners obviously believe that one not need deep integrity to be a teacher, precisely because none of these school owners: a) are teachers or b) can teach worth shit…or for that matter…have any integrity besides their allegiance to $$$$$$$$$.
Hold yer horses there…the number of English teachers here with real degrees in teaching English as a foreign language must be miniscule.
Check out the what is your degree thread, wherever it is, and you will see that few have the real deal regarding what they are doing in Taiwan.
Degrees of people I know off the top of my head – business management, philosophy, physics…none of whom are engaged in the line of work related to their degrees. Oh, except for Sandman who does use his master’s degree in Scottish dwarf tossing…
Having a degree is a formality; no official cares what the nature of it is.
I am referring to ANY UNIVERSITY DEGREE AT ALL IN ANY SUBJECT.
Of course I am not referring to people who actually have B.Ed TESL degrees or for that matter B.Ed or BA English degrees. I just mean the ‘degree in any undergraduate subject major’ that the MOE specifies is necessary to receive a work permit as a foreign teacher.
The FAKE degrees that my friends submitted were in things like Music and East Asian Studies…
Let’s not get off-topic, here. I would assume that 95% of the (real degree) ARC holders in Taiwan are not certified teachers or B.Ed TESL holders. Those people are all in Hong Kong:)
School owners fully know that their teachers have fake degrees. And turn a blind eye…if not FAVOUR those teachers over others…especially if said teacher is North American. The whole thing makes me sick. (hugging my South African friends).
My degree is real. However, at the buxiban I previously taught at, the manager sometimes showed me resumes of people who had applied, and fairly often the degrees were obviously fake. I could tell because they claimed to have degrees from non-existent schools. Sometimes, only someone from the same country would be likely to realize that it wasn’t a real school, which is why the manager would ask us.
This begs the question that the SA is better qualified because he has a degree, which you have said likely has nothing whatsoever to do with teaching.
First, KK phonetics used in Taiwan are based on US pronunciation, so it is natural that people with that pronunciation are preferred (just as I don’t want my Chinese teacher here – where I live – to teach me all that mainland nasal pronunciation and alternate expressions).
Second, even if the talent of both people in your example are the same, I don’t think, personally, that one having a degree in QBA and one having a degree in biology means anything. Same if neither has a degree.
The degree requirement is just a government formality.
As far as degrees, with today’s software, you should be able to make a degree that is basically indistinguishable from a real one.
If you have a degree (even if it’s not in TEFL) from a university in an English speaking country surely that shows you are reasonably literate. Admittedly it might not show much, but it shows something…
I really think it’s a joke the way they talk about “American English” in Taiwan as if it’s a different language from any other kind of English!! I’m learning Chinese at Sydney University now, and i could just imagine the reaction if i asked my tutorial teacher (who’s from southern China) to put on a Beijing accent!!
I never realized so many teachers had fake degrees (with the exception of the fine teachers of Forumosa, of course) until I started meeting teachers from other cities. The only teachers I know with real, four-year degrees are South Africans (and the fine teachers who post on Forumosa, of course).
) university. (You know, reduce, recycle, reuse…)
). I don’t know about bought fake degrees, but I know people that did the photocopy trick and have gotten an ARC (not me).