How many hours do you work (contract hours vs. actual working hours)

Hi all,
How many hours does your contract state?
And how many hours do you end up working?
-Buxiban, Private Schools, and Public Schools. Full time and part time. Whatever you teach please share if you don’t mind. I’m trying to get a realistic idea of what my workload might look like depending on what route I choose. If 8-5 really means 8-5 (at public/private) or if 18 hours (at Buxiban) really means 18 hours. I know this varies drastically across settings and schools but it would be helpful to at least get an idea of what I’m in for.
Thanks!

The rule of thumb with buxiban teaching is 1.5 times your contact (actual teaching) hours to allow for preparation etc.

MOE Public junior and senior high FET contract says max 20/week (45-50 minute classes). I call bs cuz my coworkers are paid overtime on any classes above 18/week. (450NT/class). I haven’t complained to anyone of authority because they “borrow” my classes all the time.
A few years back I seem to remember elementary being a max of 24 (40 min. Classes) but I think that’s gone down to 22?

Public school jobs are always full time, which means you arrive at 8am and leave at 5pm. (some let you leave at 4 or 4:30) It also means if you follow that schedule you’re the last to arrive and the first to leave and people in your school will resent you for it.

You’re supposed to “prepare for classes and assist the school with other things” when you’re not teaching. In the three schools I’ve been at that usually means “sit at your desk at least 90% of the time you’re not teaching and look busy”

You do need a teaching license to teach at a public school here. This is not the same thing as a degree in education. You will want a teaching degree and a license because there’s a very good chance you’ll be left to your own devices and will want to know what the heck your doing.

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FET contract here: https://www.fettaiwan.com/downloads-contract/

If any public school offers you less than what you see in the contract above, report them to the education bureau or police because they’re stealing FET money (I had an elementary school try to pull that on me)

Ok thanks this is super helpful! So it is at least possible to keep work hours within that time frame. I’m a new teacher (special education) from the states and my 1st year I felt like a slave always working after hours. I know that is part of the job but I figure it might ruin my experience in Taiwan if all I am doing is working / lesson planning beyond 8-5. That’s why I’m thinking the Buxiban route so I can actually have time to meet people, learn Mandarin and go exploring.

Alright, thanks!

If you’re coming from the US, teaching English in a public school here will be a breeze (time commitment wise) There’s so much downtime, I’ve thought of getting a telecommuting job to do during my prep time.
When I taught in the states, it was “go go go” from 7am to 3:30 pm and then stay late/ work at home until it was time to crash. When I see public school teachers at coffee shops here prepping on a Saturday afternoon, I know they’re just doing it for show. You have more than a 1:1 ratio of prep time to class time, so there’s no reason to work outside of school hours.
Be very careful with cram schools. Some require all sorts of nonsense “record keeping” that can take more than the time you spend teaching. It depends on the school. Some only require you to show up and teach a preprepared class. Totally depends on the school.

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Also, if you’re planning to learn mandarin on your own, you can totally do that from your desk at school. I found that scheduling my “Chinese time” in to my class schedule was far more productive than trying to plan it in to my time off on the evenings/weekends.
If you’re taking classes, that can also be a great way to get out at 5pm and not be held by bored coworkers who just want to make your life miserable by keeping you past your contract hours.

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One more thing that I just remembered, if you’re licensed, you’re going to get way better pay and benefits at a public school than at a cram school. With one year at a public school and a BA, you’d make around NT64,000/ month. You work from mid August to the end of June, paid through mid July and receive a one month bonus (if you don’t have complaints against you). You get two weeks off for CNY paid. You also get a monthly housing stipend of 5,000 (single) or 10,000 (living with spouse or blood relative) and round trip flight allowance for yourself and a blood family member/spouse, 80,000 NT each.
I did the math once but to get that from a cram school with the same number of hours per week and the same number of weeks worked in the year you’d need to make something like NT2,200/hour. No cram school is gunna pay that much and I don’t know how many people are willing to pay that much for tutoring either. (Probably not 20 hours anyway)
For me, I wouldn’t give up the FET program for other options because the teachers who join span from 23 years old to 80 and come from every English speaking country ever. It’s also a community of people sharing completely different experiences but with the common goal of getting kids better at English. We bring our struggles up on Line and try to work to a solution together.
This is in sharp contrast to other programs I’ve been in where everything about life here is a competition- from who’s students like them the most to who has the most local friends. Impossible to live your life and no one cares if you’re being mistreated or asked to break the law daily.

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That’s about 10k to 15k less than at a private school.

Isn’t that part of the 65k and not in addition to it? I remember when I worked at a public school, the housing portion was calculated as part of the 65k.

To the OP:
At a private elementary school you can expect the following:

  1. Working hours from 8:00 to 4:30 or 5:30 (depends on the school)

  2. Average starting salary of 75K if you play your cards right. Salaries at private schools tend to increase each time you renew your contract. I know people making close to 90k. This won’t happen at public schools.

  3. In addition to your salary, most private schools have a monthly or yearly performance bonus + Chinese New Year bonus + attendance bonus + some offer the airline ticket home or cash equivalent.

  4. Although you are at work 8:00 to 4:30ish, your actual teaching hours are on average 20 to 25 a week. Your nonteaching hours are prep time to grade papers etc.

  5. Private schools will generally have you teaching multiple subjects in English (EFL/ESL + Science + Math + Social Studies etc). In private schools, you teach multiple lessons to the same group of kids throughout the week. Public schools only have you teaching EFL/ESL, typically the same lesson all week long to different groups of kids.

My experience at both is that you have less admin responsibility at public schools and less paperwork as well as less contact with parents. Kids tend to have poorer English skills and expectations are not that high…so stress level is a bit lower.

Private schools require you to do more admin work, paperwork and contact with parents. You need to create your own teaching materials to help supplement your lessons. This can be more stressful. However, I feel it can be far more rewarding if you want to do more as a teacher.

Kids, in my opinion, are better behaved in public schools because you are a visiting teacher to their classroom where they are accountable for their actions to their Chinese teacher all day long. Whereas in a private school (depending on which one) kids tend to be a bit more spoilt and behavior shows and you are directly responsible for the kids during your class with no Chinese teacher present. They aren’t all that way of course. And if you have solid classroom management skills, most behavior problems aren’t that hard to handle.

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Nope, it’s in addition. After tax withholding, labor insurance, and healthcare get taken out it feels like you didn’t get your housing stipend, but you get your tax withholding back in July and labor insurance might be a nice pension if you stick around for 15 years (hahaha)

Really? Which private schools have base pay of 75-85k with the same amount of weekly working hours? I ask only because I’ve never gotten offers that high and I have quite a few years teaching experience and a teaching license in my field.

Almost all of them. Kangchiao, LiRen, Wego, Yuteh, etc. This is based on what I know I make and what other teachers who work at various other schools have told me they make.

You will get a low ball offer on par with a public school starting salary of 65K…but you can negotiate. Use your qualifications and experience to talk your way up the starting salary ladder.

Good to know. All the offers I’ve gotten have been +/-60,000 for the first 6 months (“probation”) and then something around 68,000 after that. None of them offered flight reimbursement for me, let alone family members, and the closest thing to a housing stipend I was offered was a school dorm room available for NT1,300/ month.

I laughed in the face of an interviewer at one of those offers. He insisted it was a good deal and told me no other school would pay that well. Even told me I was lying about my current pay and benefits from MOE. The contract and pay scale are up on their website, it’s not something I can lie about and get away with…

As I have a few years under my belt and public school salaries go up about NT2,000/month each year, I think I’m still pretty solid for my current pay rate. When I inevitably snap from the Taiwanese government’s nonsense about “bilingual education”, maybe I’ll check private schools again.
But thanks for the heads up about pay. I’ll have to fight harder for a reasonable wage next time.

And almost 100K less than some cram school teachers I know make. If you are willing to work 8-10 hours a day, you can earn much more part-time, but it’s in the legal grey area at best. That should change soon I think. Seems to be a push for earlier English proficiency now.

work 8-10 hours a day or teach? I could probably make 165k/ month teaching 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, but the question is, would I want to?

Correction: I could definitely make that much, if I wanted to work that many hours. That’s not even 900NT/hr. Who is a teacher that works that many hours? Where are your hobbies? Family? Friends? Pets? I mean, most office slaves are physically at their desks for 12 hours a day, but they’re usually on Facebook or YouTube or taking a nap. You can’t do that if you’re teaching.

Teaching of course.

The guys I know teach 7.5 hours/day, no weekends, take home work or office hours and earn over 150,000/mo.

I never understood why anyone took full-time teaching positions here. Even university professors earn less.

They work 9-12 and 2-6:30. Plenty of free time considering they have no take home work and weekends off.

It’s all about your priorities I guess. If I were a teacher, I’d definitely take the money over one less hour of free time a day. School teachers are stuck there until 4-5 anyways probably.

Stability.
Especially if you have a family to support.

Also perks like discounted or free tuition for your kids.

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Free tuition at a school like Kangchou would definitely even out.

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