But apparently not. Go figure.
Actually they wouldn’t reject you for that reason. Rather they would have you in their system on the list of candidates and start sending you offers elsewhere…
Also to be honest… most jobs I get offered by them are in Taipei/New Taipei as many teachers don’t want to live there due to higher cost of living
I assume you are working with a recruiter. Recruiters do like to send people off to the middle of nowhere. Maybe they get a higher commission. It doesn’t make much sense to take you off the list. They have more positions than suitable applicants.
I think all public school FET are supposed to receive the same pay (based on experience), whether you got the job yourself directly from the school or were recruited from overseas by a third-party.
It makes sense that those who get recruited from overseas get flights and a housing stipend, to make it easier for them to drop everything and move here. That is also the standard for international schools.
If you’ve already been hired as a FET locally, and have been living here for a while, it wouldn’t make sense for them to “hire” you again on an overseas package.
Your best bet is to finish your contract, go back to your home country for the summer, and try to get recruited again for the following school year.
There is no overseas package for FETs. It’s a one year contract always. That means you’re always entitled to the flight allowance and such, though there’s usually an odd 9,000 NT for move- in expenses that doesn’t usually get given to people that stay at the same school
Yes. The salary is listed on the contract that’s posted to the TFETP website. Never take worse conditions (some schools will increase the expected classes taught by a lot. I think it’s 20 for jr/sr high and 22 for elementary but I’ve seen as much as 25 classes for elementary, sometimes plus clubs) or lower pay. Check the chart at the end of the contract.
That’s what I thought, but @Leeksoup said they didn’t have flight allowance, so I assumed it was because they were hired locally. That would suggest there is a differentiation between local and overseas benefits.
To be clear, my contract that was signed and agreed upon before I started working stipulates that I get paid according to the TFETP schedule, benefits and all. It’s the local school accounting office that is simply refusing to actually pay out those benefits on the grounds that I am local.
That seems pretty extreme, and also sends the message that Taiwan values inexperienced new teachers with no knowledge of the local culture more than those who understand Taiwanese students and may even be bilingual themselves.
There must be a set of universal rules or national standard on whether locally hired foreign teachers in public schools get those benefits. Have you looked into it?
My guess is they don’t. Even locally hired foreign teachers at international schools don’t get flights and housing allowances. A foreign teacher with benefits teaching at TES, for example, wouldn’t get any benefits if they switched jobs and started teaching at TAS. I don’t see how local schools would be more generous.
The universal set of rules is that every year, every single FET is a “new teacher” (contracts are only ever for one year) and every single FET gets the flight and housing allowance, regardless of whether they’re lived in Taiwan for 30 years or zero. Now, there was some nonsense about “Taiwanese spouse’s families owning property = no housing stipend for you” last year, but I don’t know what ended up happening in the end and it doesn’t apply to @Leeksoup 's situation anyway, which is a pretty cut and dry case of “oops. We already allocated that money to ourselves and that foreigner is too stupid to demand it”.
@Leeksoup 's situation is that the contract they both signed says “Party B gets a flight reimbursement and housing allowance” but “Party A” has refused to give it to them. Which is illegal. And I don’t know why @Marco 's lawyer hasn’t been called for this yet. It’s already May…
Your reply is perfect, and you clearly understand the situation. I have asked my lizhang to arrange a meeting with the free legal counsel he offers occasionally and I plan to do something legally when my contract is up at the end of the year.
(Why wait? Well, two reasons, first is because I still work here and need the job and it would absolutely poison the atmosphere here, second is because the contract doesn’t actually set a time limit for the flight reimbursement, so I’m thinking legally they could weasel out of anything with the claim they simply haven’t done it yet.)
This Q&A by the TFETP for schools that want to participate and hire teachers might be very useful for understanding the perspective of schools. The number of questions specifically about ticket reimbursement suggest that this is a common issue.
Moderator: maybe you can move this to somewhere where it might be more useful?
If you are still interested…
As the end of the school year is approaching, I too approached a lawyer about this breach of contract. He bluntly told me it wasn’t worth either of our time to pursue this case. Apparently the maximum I could hope for is $80k TWD, the amount payable for airfaire reimbursement, and his fees start at $50k just to write up the… subpoena? Deposition? I don’t know legal words. The document where you officially begin suing someone.
So unless I can find someone to take this case for cheap, it looks like it’s not going anywhere.
You could threaten to take it to the press. I’ve always stood my ground with idiots not paying me. A contract is a contract.
It’s culturally different in East Asia as I’m sure you are aware. Whether cultural differences are legally binding, I don’t know. “A contract is a contract.” simply isn’t the case in reality.
I guess I’ve been burned enough times in Taiwan to have a zero tolerance policy about this. If this is “cultural exchange”, both cultures need to learn from the other. In developed nations, if you recruit a teacher from abroad and then refuse to give them effectively 30% of their benefits, the public learns about it and the employer gets named and shamed.
Did OP @Leeksoup contact the FET program itself?
The FET is not cultural exchange. It is basically a special kind of migrant worker program. There is no requirement that either culture learn from the other and little evidence in Taiwan or my native country that anyone wants to do anything of the sort.
In developed nations
Taiwan is universally recognized as a developed country except by a few disgruntled foreigners who live here.
You have a lot to learn. The Taiwanese public could care less if a foreign teacher gets stiffed out of an airplane ticket. They think foreign teachers are paid too much to begin with. They would be even more outraged to discover that the cost of a plane ticket is only 30% of the benefits an FET teacher receives.
Name away. There is no shame.
There is no legal system I know of in which contracts are self-enforcing. If someone breaches a contract, the aggrieved party has to go to court to enforce the contract. It is just too bad if you can’t afford a lawyer, it is not worth the lawyer’s time, or you can’t figure out how to do it yourself.
I don’t agree with that, but that’s the harsh reality in many cases.
Employment contracts can be a a bit different in countries that have strong labor protection policies and unions who have fought to get them. But that is not at all the situation in Taiwan. It has nothing to do with “a contract being a contract.”
That’s kind of my point about being a developed nation. If the Filipino workers that are filling vacant teaching positions in the US (there are many) took it to the press that not only were their flights not getting reimbursed, they had no shot at citizenship (that’s an actual reality of Filipino teachers in the US), the public would immediately know about it. The public does know about the migrant worker teachers in the US. And people who care about education are outraged while self-righteous politicians and school district morons who sit around collecting six figures to do nothing but justify it.
I’ve literally fought to get my benefits at every public school I’ve taught at. I stood my ground and got them. I dared do this because the teachers before me had to stand their ground and told me what they had to do.
There was a multiple year streak where no foreign teacher in one county was paid before their December paycheck, maybe four years in a row. That’s half the school year of working before seeing any money for the work done. It’s insane and illegal but the more people roll over any say “well that’s just Taiwan” or call people “disgruntled foreigners”, the more justified the schools are in scamming them.
It’s bad enough Fulbright is off paying NT40k/month to totally unqualified college grads to play dancing monkey in the schools and then offering 50k for them to fill FET positions that start at 68k/month now (talk about pocketing the difference…)
The value of a qualified foreign teacher just keeps going down down down and the benefits to people who intended to make a living by being in Taiwan as a qualified teacher long term just keep slipping away.
Also, I’ve never involved a lawyer to get an employer to follow the freaking contract. There is no need to involve a lawyer.
I agree.