Hess wants me to teach children under 6. Is that illegal?

It depends on their schools charter or if they are a buxiban. International schools are exempted from the English prohibition. To attend an these schools the student needs an international passport which can be obtained for a price. It’s likely they combined a buxiban with a kindergarten and just shoo the English teachers upstairs or out the back when the moe shows up. I can’t help with finding laws though.

you said this law was passed and many local governments adhere to this law, but don’t know what is this law? :confused:

For clarification, the central government(MOE) does not prohibit to teach English to kids under 6 at buxiban, at this moment.

If the above is wrong, please correct me with a source.

They do prohibit teaching English in kindergartens though. So it really depends how the school is classified.

it is illegal to teach English or any other foreign language as a subject in kindergartens. Half or full day English courses are also prohibited.
It is said in Article 13 of 幼兒教保及照顧服務實施準則.

Teaching English in integral ways for short time in kindergartens may be allowed, but foreigners on work based ARC cannot teach anything legally in kindergartens.
The laws are Article 26 of The Statute for Preschool Educators, and Article 46 of Employment Service Act.

:roll_eyes:

Unless things have changed since I worked for Shane (almost 10 years ago), they do have kindy classes. At that time, us teachers all knew that working the kindy was legally ambiguous or outright illegal, so Shane never pushed anybody to do it who didn’t want to.

For the record, my own experience with Shane was excellent. The management were great and helped me out a lot. They always had my back when nonsense would erupt at the school, either with the principal or a disgruntled parent. But, as I said, that was almost 10 years ago, so I don’t know how much things have changed since then. I always used to hear bad things about HESS and Kojen and appreciate the fact that I worked for Shane instead, but I don’t know how accurate any of that actually was.

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Goodness, I still owe Shane L a night out in Taipei. Thoroughly nice chap and a good night out we had .

When I worked at Shane he saw us in Bar 45, I think, clocked that we were some of the guys making him money and brought over a bottle of champagne. Bloody nice bloke. Has he fully recovered from his brain cancer scare?

As alankaz said if a teacher has any issues with their school manager the Shane management will, within reason, back the teacher. I think they are tougher on franchisees than the schools they manage directly, though! At least it used to be like this.

There’s a Shane next to my apt building and the western teacher seems happy when I ask him about it.

I didn’t know Shane was actually named after someone. When did you work there?

OP, Hess is mostly bogus, just as the old threads say. But you could always try it for a year to gain experience and then find a different job if it’s not working out for you. They more or less expect that, anyway.

It’s really only awful if you get stuck at a shitty branch in a shitty area with shitty kids and shitty management. I’d say about 75% of people get at least 2 out of those 4. The other quarter get lucky, have a decent time, and even stick around for more.

What a scam.

I suppose in theory the MOL could amend its list of jobs that fall under ESA Art. 46 Par. 1 Subpar. 1 like they did (iirc) for culinary arts and thus grant a work permit for a foreigner to work in a kindergarten, as the law does not actually state foreigners can’t get kindergarten WP’s (it goes the other way around and lists jobs for which foreigners can get WP’s, and kindergarten teaching is not on the list). However, that seems very unlikely unless the government announces a policy change, so I basically concur with @tando.

To summarize:

  1. If you have a work permit for one buxiban, you cannot use it to work (legally) at any other educational business entity – buxiban, kindergarten, school etc. – even if it’s owned by the same person/company, even if it’s in the same building or looks like it’s in at the same address but is technically next door or on a different floor. This is a known trick that’s been going on for years. The buxiban would trick you into thinking you were safe, but if caught, you would be liable for a fine and deportation.

  2. If the “buxiban” has students under age 6 who eat and sleep (afternoon nap) on-site, it would probably be classified as a de facto kindergarten and could therefore be shut down, so even if you personally didn’t get in trouble, you would still lose your job. This happened to a notorious chain school (Jump Start or Jumpstart) not long ago.

  3. If you have a work permit for an actual buxiban, and your classes are on-site (or if off-site then not at an educational business entity), and the students do not eat/sleep on-site, and the local department of education does not forbid underage students in buxibans (I’m not aware of any local government that does, even though they all could if they wanted to), then you should be safe.

Clear now? :slight_smile:

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