Future of buxiban market in relation to online schools

So I understand the market isn’t quite what it once was. But I find that english teachers in buxibans still can live a fairly comfortable life here.

My question is what are the prospects for the future of the buxiban market. I’m specifically wondering in relation to the surge of online english classes. Some people have told me that soon the buxiban market will be completely wiped since people will using the internet more for education.

I know that wages have stagnated, especially due to lower birth rates. But what do we think? Going to pick up again, stay the same, or get even worse?

English teachers from the Philippines will come and undercut all the remaining “white” English teachers and the rest will take online classes.

The era of the white man is over. Tough luck, racists!

On a serious note. I think wages will infact get worse, due to supply and demand.

But, I don’t think the buxiban will be going anywhere as (some) parents don’t want to look after their kids.

Right but then I’m also wondering if at some point it will level out and just plateau. I mean people still have babies here

I think there’s more and more “teachers” / beggars, whatever you wanna call them coming to Taiwan everyday. Taiwanese having a few babies won’t make much of a difference.

Also, once Mr.Wu the buxiban owner figures out how to meme “filipinos are better English teachers then westerners” so he can save a bunch of Chang kai-shekels by paying them WAY less. The white foreigner teacher market will be killed.

This school my niece goes to just got rid of one British dude and replaced him with two filipinos.

Well that’s depressing.

I was more curious about online teaching wiping out the buxibans but even so… Tons of filipinos teaching online for cheap makes me think this place is going to dry up quick

that’s on page 3 of the South bound policy from the government!

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someone needs to do babysitting.

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People have been talking about tons of Filipinos, Indians, etc. flooding the job market for years. It’s not going to happen. Anyway, there are plenty of Filipinos who can work here legally as teachers. There are a lot of Chinese-Filipinos who have gotten citizenship here. But I’ve only worked at one school willing to hire them.

But the actually topic is the future in relation to online schools. Buxibans serve two purposes. The first is to teach English, the second is to warehouse kids for awhile after school. Also, almost every buxiban is also an anqinban (homework class). Those are services that can’t be provided online. Also, if most kids aren’t good at sitting still and listening in a class, they sure aren’t going to at home in front of the computer.

The only industry online classes affect is adult learning schools, which is a very small part of the foreign-labor job market. The online adult schools that mostly advertise in Taiwan are based in Taiwan and employ foreign teachers who live in Taiwan, so it doesn’t affect wages much anyway. There are several online schools based in the Philippines, but they mostly target Japan, Korea, and the wealthy Arab countries.

Buxibans and online classes just fill different roles.

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Why is this? It seems like it’s a no-brainer as an employer to hire people that will work for less and do the same job. What am I not understanding?

They’re a tough sell to the punters.

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I think it’s more interesting to stick to the topic of online schools, and this might get split if it continues to go off topic, but there are many many threads going years back about why many schools won’t hire non-Caucasian teachers. The short answer is, it’s about image and branding. Best to start a new thread or join one of the old ones to dig into that more.

But straying back on topic, a lot of the Filipino language schools are over Skype or similar and using online tools like Google Docs to teach long distance, so that image isn’t as important as you don’t really need to see the teacher. The online teaching market really has a lot of potential. Gjun, LiveABC, and a few other schools started their own online teaching systems, and TutorABC is probably the biggest in the market. I said before they hire from within Taiwan, but it seems like TutorABC hires teachers from abroad. Anyway, as far as buxibans go, I don’t think online classes are going to cover the things parents want, babysitting, exposure to other cultures, and maybe socializing.

No because they don’t want their kids sounding like Filipinis or that would of happened years ago. The parents in general prefer white. They have become much more accepting of black American teachers recently here, but sorry not fillipinis

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Well that’s a little reassuring but what is stopping them from just going to companies based in, say, the States with teachers who live there rather than in Taiwan.

Being massively disorganized and unwilling to pay American wages ?

Well, as I said in my next message, one of the largest, TutorABC, does hire from outside Taiwan. I think originally they didn’t, but I looked around and it seems they do now.
As for other companies, people certainly can use them, but they don’t advertise much in Taiwan. Google learn english online in Chinese and the ads are mostly for local companies. EF is international, but not many others are.
Anyway, teaching adults is a very small part of the foreign teacher job market.

I feel like wages would be lower in America than here (for teaching ESL that is). Tons of US 20-somethings still living with their parents happy to make $13/hr teaching online than going to work in fastfood, coffee shop, restaurant, retail etc.

Always good to hear but man, if they could figure out how to market to kids in Taiwan could be a huge shift but idk.

I don’t see how it’s possible. Maybe with older kids who are motivated, but the market is for age 3-13ish. Not many kids continue going after 6th grade.