Stay legal…you have to jump through hoops but you don’t want to spend the rest of your working days here always having to look over your shoulder.
I agree, your best bet is to go legal. If you want to start planning towards it even before you rent a place, you may find that a place you rent or construction you do is not licensable.
i would advise contacting your local bushiban assc., they will help you wade through the red tape, and in my opinion what you pay them will be worth it unless you feel really confident about wading through the stuff. in taipei besides the education dept regs–which are no big deal–you have ever changing and often capricious building dept and fire dept regulations to deal with.
However, let me say that the taipei jiaoyuju anyway is notoriously lacking in bite. I’ve never heard of them doing anything to an illegal school, someone correct me if I have. they made a big stink about regulations for fining/closing illegal schools a while back, i doubt they actually used them. the stumbling block to the illegal business was always that you couldn’t licence teachers and they could be deported. now with the owp, that would seem to be taken out of the equation if you have one. going illegal will save you myriad annoying inspections, and the tax man may not cometh… unless your competitor drops a dime on you! as db says, who needs to be looking over their shoulder, i agree.
How do you get a hold of the local bushiban association?
Do they speak english?
How do you get a hold of the local bushiban association?
Do they speak English?[/quote]
the one in Taipei is called the “bujiao xiehui” for short, don’t know if they speak English. I am assuming that similar orgs. exist elsewhere. If you need his number or that for another area I will ask the guy there, he should know.
Maoman,
How is your new bushiban going? What things are easier/harder than expected?
The Bassman (nee Hogg):
[quote]Posted: Tue May 27, 2003 2:24 pm Post subject:
Where can I find a copy of the regulations regarding opening a buxiban / English cram school?
Let’s say I wanted to get the start up cash for a school - what is the best way to do it? The bank - through my wife? Slog hard hours of overtime to save the cash? [/quote]
Damn! Didn’t realize you were such a fast mover!
Respec!
HG
One step forward, two steps back. In April we had the perfect location, small, but with great profit potential. We were in a strip of businesses that were the first floor and front row of a huge set of public housing blocks, and right next to a primary school and a junior high school (Back-to-back and literally metres away from our location) that were under construction, and set to open next year. Our architect assured us that it was licensable. We started construction but found out from the Fire Prevention inspector that our location was, in fact, not licensable. There are apparently some educational businesses that are restricted from public housing blocks in Taipei City, and some previous regulations superceded other regulations, yadda, yadda, yadda. We could have built an anqinban there, but the location didn’t have anything like a kitchen, and anyway, we had already decided that we were going to start with a buxiban first, and then maybe later expand to an anqinban. Our architect (a friend of a friend) was pretty embarrassed, and weakly protested that we should have researched the laws better. I just looked at her and she admitted that she was at least partly responsible. End result was that we took equal financial responsibility. We had already started construction, and now that we had to back out of our hard-won three year lease, we needed to return the property to something approximating its original state. We ended up taking a bath to the tune of 200k. Not a nice experience, but not the end of the world. By this time SARS was in full bloom, and with a family reunion coming up we decided to shelve our plans until we came back. We’re back now, and actively looking for locations. Wish us luck. 
Maoman,
You poor bugger. I’m amazed how easy it is, especially when you try to follow the laws and regulations, to get screwed by those regulations. Nobody seems to know the laws, until it is too late. Getting straight answers is all too rare, and assurances are given with a casual confidence rather than an honest “I have no idea.”
Good luck with your new project.
Good luck Maoman, I wish you success.
There were some legal questions about who can be the owner of a Buxiban earlier in the thread. Each jurisdiction sets the rules for this. In Taipei, a foreigner can be the owner (she4li4ren2) if she has an ARC. However this ARC cannot be an ARC based on work or student status. The Academic Director (Ban1zhu3ren4) must be a Taiwan National. See Article 20 of the Taipei City Regulation Governing Buxibans. The Academic Director is a full time position with authority over “class matters”. Kaohsiong’s rules are the same.
The Anqinban question is more complicated. Ask your local Bureau of Education for the names of their regulations in Chinese. Also make sure you specify the age of the children you want to babysit.
I have a feeling that if you are not legal, your competitors will report you and the Bureau of Education will be compelled to do something. The fines are pretty steep for operating a Buxiban illegally–NT$50K to 250K. If you continue to operate illegally, the fines can be imposed daily!
Maoman: As you are probably aware, meeting code is pretty tough for a small business anywhere. There are accounting firms that specialize in helping businesses meet code. You should probably try to find one rather than trying to handle thsi yourself.
[quote=“Feiren”]The Academic Director (Ban1zhu3ren4) must be a Taiwan National. See Article 20 of the Taipei City Regulation Governing Buxibans. The Academic Director is a full time position with authority over “class matters”. Kaohsiong’s rules are the same.
[/quote]
This poses an interesting question, if the Academic Director is a Foreign National with a JFRV and therefore has Open work rights within Taiwan is it still considered to be illegal to hold this postition?
Personally I would like to place a foreign teacher as Ban zhu ren in any new school that is opened and as I know a few that are married to Taiwan Nationals I think that would not be a bad idea. After all Open Work rights do offer you the same work rights as Taiwanese, is it legal for these cities to make these regulations and apply it to ALL foreigners?
I think the simple answer on the gound is yes it would still be considered illegal.
[quote]
After all Open Work rights do offer you the same work rights as Taiwanese, is it legal for these cities to make these regulations and apply it to ALL foreigners?[/quote]
We would like to believe this. And the intent of the law is clearly to bundle residency and work rights togther so that foreigners with certain types of residency would be able to enjoy the smae work rights as Taiwanese. Unfortunatley the text of Article 51 of the Employment Services Law simply states that the restrictions imposed in Article 46 (and elsewhere) do not apply to certain classes of foreigners including foreigners with permanent residency or marriage-based ARCs. It does not say that these foreigners have equal work rights.
Article 9 of the Buxiban Law devolves authority over. This means that in Taipei, the Bureau of Education is the so-called competent authority with the power to regulate (among other things) management and teacher qualifications. The Bureau has chosen to require that the academic director be a Taiwan national.
The broader question is whether an administrative agency can impose a work qualification based solely on nationality. If so,we may soon see regulations requiring, say, truck drivers to be Taiwan nationals. This seems grossly unfair to me.
You should apply to have a foreigner serve as your academic director. When they reject your application, appeal. This is an important issue.
What I can see in Taiwan is regardless of Buxiban or kindergarten the old switcha roo goes on with banzhuren all the time. The paper work says so and so but the business cards and the reality say another person. When inspected the person from the paper work must be there but otherwise day to day operations are mostly in the hands of different people.
Excuse my interruption
Inadvertantly went to the front of the thread and saw this from Maoman:
[quote]Posted: Tue May 06, 2003 12:18 pm
I’m getting hitched fairly soon*, and with the flexibility and freedom that a Joining Family ARC and an Open Work Permit gives, I am considering starting my own biz. [/quote]
Boyakasha! Likewise congrats on getting things together so fast. I’m sure you’ll overcome the initial hiccups.
HG
You can say that again. I haven’t seen my “banzhuren” in years I haven’t even needed to borrow her chop since god knows when.
Maoman, good luck on the rebuild. I’m going to be doing the same next year and hope the same thing doesn’t happen to me. I think I might go off to the temple and bai bai.