Smart lady.
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Any school that has classes in Chinese and other classes in English would be a bilingual school.
Almost all private schools are bilingual in this sense. Including Kangchiao, LiRen, Yuteh, Wego, etc.
She was 1 out of 100. Unfortunately, I am not like her. lol. But, she did help me a lot. She was like my second mom.
Education is not a good investment as it used to be. High cost of education doesn’t guarantee future job outlook. Several of my colleagues send their kids abroad to the U.S.A. for college then come back to Taiwan with difficulty finding jobs in their field of interest. Private education is a luxury nowadays. One should do it only if one has enough savings or money put aside to fund kids’ education. Selling assets or borrowing to finance kids’ education would not be a good move. Buying blue chip stocks or income producing real estate under kids’ name VS sending kids to private education is always a controversial topic. Which is a better investment? Mileage may vary from individual to individual.
Kang Chao , TAS, TES do have remarkable USA college track records. But it is not worth sacrificing family living standard to bet on kids’ education. Some of the most successful entrepreneurs aren’t college graduates. Education makes future employees. Street smart, hard work, and persistence yields successful entrepreneurs .
Why not try it out and see what happens. Ask the kid to take the ISEE exam and apply to TAS. TAS admission process is quite competitive lately. If interview goes well, try it out for a a year to see if school is a good fit for the child. TAS has a great STEM program with the newly added Soloman Wang science cube building. It is still the best choice in my opinion
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The problem is the pressure on the children to earn the money back that was invested in them. Not nice when combined with unrealistic expectations .
How much money are we talking about for TAS $$$$$$.
No thanks anyway I don’t want my kids to pick up that culture.
The occupation of a student is professional learning. Earning a 4.0 GPA is like earning a 6 figure pay check. Getting accepted to Ivy League University is like getting a job at Google or Facebook. It’s a very competitive world out there indeed.
TAS lower school is about NT$700k per year and EAL program is additional NT$250k Per year. One million dollar per year for elementary school education does seem like a lot. But considering the cost of sending a child abroad to USA for private boarding school at prestigious high schools such as St. Paul, Webb . etc TAS seems reasonable.
I agree. No wonder I told my parents not to send me to those schools. I planned to become a graphic designer. There are tons of graphic designers who never attended Colleges. I earned a High School Diploma in Advertising Design and an Associated Degree in Nursing. They were all Municipal Schools. Very affordable. I am currently working as a Nurse at an International Company. I earn more than some College graduated. But, I have other plans for my future. I want to take the exam to work for government office in Taiwan and work as a freelancer graphic designer during my free time. If I really move to USA, I will use my credits from my LVN Nursing School to transfer them to get RN in Nursing.
My kids don’t need to go to an Ivy Leave school they can go to a good school anyway I’m pretty sure . It’s nice to have an ivy league degree but it’s not the be all and end all. Later most folks can get grad degrees if they are so inclined. Also the cultural fit is not good for my family .
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totally agree with you brian. Ivy League life style doesn’t guarantee a successful and happy life. Education is only a label. That’s all to it. The definition of successful and happiness is different for everyone. Money, Status, high life is not how everyone define success and happiness.
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Culture is a big issue for me. I want my kids closer to both their parents culture. I am very proud of my own heritage and they should be proud of their mothers heritage. We already almost lost our ancestral languages on both sides we should probably try to hold on to what we have .
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Parents can use the money to invest in mutual funds. I was thinking what it is gonna happen when kids choose the major they might not like later. I know they can change the major, but they will feel so pressured to graduate early. Teens will be always teens. They live in a stage of identity vs. role confusion. When they finish High School, people think they already know what they want because they are 18 years old. But, how many times we met people around 50’s and still don’t know what they want.
I invest in dodgy crypto currency schemes and the rest I waste on stocks and savings and kids football practice.
It is really difficult to predict anyone’s future. I have seen some PhD graduated who left their dream job to open a restaurant. I have seen some people judging them. Perhaps, they just realized that nobody asked what they really wanted.
You are doing the right thing. If they are happy, don’t feel pressured about what it is best for their future. Kids normally can make good decisions when they have a supportive and loving family.
A lot of these private bilingual schools in Taiwan are real Mickey Mouse establishments. My brother worked in one in Hsinchu for a year to build up experience to study teaching back home in the UK (he wasn’t even a qualified teacher at the time) and I heard some real horror stories about how some of those places are run. Just because they’re expensive, doesn’t mean they’re good.
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Details, give us the details. Don’t leave us hanging!
kids with parents who are English native speakers have big advantage to learn english, so how they raise bilingual kids might not be very applicable to most of local parents. I think most of local parents (not some) cannot afford those schools, and I’m sure those schools are not really necessary to educate kids as Bilingual kids. If kids and parents are motivated there are many ways they can learn.
I think even expat parents don’t need to give a priority to make kids bilingual, especially if they have other things to be keen on, though. I don’t know why many taiwanese want to kids learn English so much. English is surely useful, but there are many things as/more useful as/than English.
judging from the annual cost of 700,000-1,000,000 NTD, I think OP is referring TAS, TES, Dominican, Morrison, and kang chiao as international or bilingual schools. 250k-350k NTD I posted is a tuition range of private schools claiming to have bilingual/English courses.
I forgot to say Taipei city is starting ib/international courses at some Municipal high schools next school year. The cost may be about 650,000 ntd for 3 years.
Start test prep early for the SAT. Any student from public school can apply to USA universities as long as they score high on the SAT and have extra curricular activities to boost their application. Perhaps money spent on professional test preparation and music / athletic coaching is better than sending kids TAS, TES, Kang Chao etc… Just a thought
I’m (inactive) in a couple Facebook groups in which seemingly 95% of parents send their kids to international or bilingual schools and apparently couldn’t see it any other way. However, from the sort of questions asked, the kids seem entirely unable to function in society. I imagine that parents who believe they need to spend $50k per month for secondary schools and wonder if the MRT has a service to accompany their teenagers if they need to transfer lines don’t produce really independent individuals though really have no idea if I’m missing other factors.
By contrast, the expats I know who have kids who have gone through the local systems nearly all have kids who you could drop off in any country and do fine.
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