MOE to amend Buxiban Act: No students under six years old

[cfimages]

[quote=“jwbrunken”][quote]I seem to be confused. DO kids under 6 go to buxibans now?

And, I thought teaching kindy (kids under 6) was illegal anyway? (as fas a foreigner + English was involved).

What does this law actually change?
[/quote]

As is my understanding the current law states that no foreigner can teach in a kindergarten. Because of that law, many kindergartens that are English only are now registered as “buxibans”. Therefore they somewhat circumvent that law. Thus, there are many many kids under 5 who attend these buxiban/preschool/kindergartens. These schools run the gamut of your typical English language factory type buxibans that glues kids asses to the chair for a few hours a day to the schools that and operate as a legitimate preschool/kindergartens emphaisizing learning through play and experiencial activities and song and dance. The later is not the type of school this new proposed law is targeting, but the former. However, how do you specifically target the one and not the other?

Also, to further answer your question, there are buxibans out there designed for pre-K kids to get a head start in math, science, and other subjects or learning skills. Some these do border on child abuse, and warrant some type of regulation.

What this law is supposed to change is to remove all of these kids ages 3-5 (some schools take 2 year-olds) from the buxibans and get them into accredited pre-Ks and Ks with certified teachers. That is the idea. It hardly seems enforceable as demand for these buxibans remains high, and there seems to be a built in exception/loophole (teaching art or music and dance). Nonetheless, if it passes, it will be interesting which school are able to circumvent the law, which ones close, and if anything really changes at all.

My opinion is to just do away with the old “foreigners can’t teach in kindergarten” and allow school to hire certified foreigners to teach in bilingual kindergartens so everything can then me regulated and options remain open for parents wanting Western-style pre-K and English instruction. This current proposal seems to be aimed at that, but seems excessive to me.

Let’s wait and see if it passes before we sweat our pants about it too much.[/quote]

I believe it’s (the current law) English cannot be taught in kindergarten, not a no foreigner thing. It just happens that foreigners aren’t licensed to teach anything else here so it appears to be no foreigners in kindie. My wife, who is Taiwanese and teaches English in kindergarten gets a (unpaid) morning off every few weeks because the authorities check the schools to make sure English is not taught. The main difference is she can’t be deported if caught, although she could still be fined.

[Feiren]

I was interested to learn from this article about the following debate:

Over the last decade or so, the central debate in the field of early-childhood education has been between one group that favors what you might call a preacademic approach to prekindergarten and kindergarten and another group that contends that the point of school in those early years is not to prepare for academic study; it is to allow children to explore the world, learn social skills and have free, unconstrained fun. The preacademic camp began to dominate the debate in the late 1990s, drawing on some emerging research that showed that children’s abilities at the beginning of kindergarten were powerful predictors of later success. If a child reached his 5th birthday well behind his peers in measures of cognitive ability, this research showed, he would most likely never catch up. The good news in the research was that if you exposed struggling children to certain intensive reading and math interventions in prekindergarten and kindergarten, when their minds were still at their most pliable, you could significantly reduce or even eliminate that lag. And so the answer, to many scholars and policy makers, was clear: there was no time to waste in those early years on Play-Doh and fingerpainting, not when kids, and especially disadvantaged kids, could be making such rapid advances in the critical cognitive skills they needed.

The article goes on to say that there has been a backlash against these views in favor of more ‘play’.

They say, after all, that play should have a central place in early-childhood classrooms. And they do find fault with the academic approach, arguing that in practice, many of the early-childhood academic initiatives that have been introduced in the No Child Left Behind era have failed to produce any significant improvement in academic skills. At the same time, they don’t agree that the solution is unstructured free play. The romantic idea that children are born with flowering imaginations and a natural instinct for make-believe is simply wrong, they say. Especially these days, they contend, when children spend more time in front of screens and less time in unsupervised play, kids need careful adult guidance and instruction before they are able to play in a productive way.

[jwbrunken]

[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“jwbrunken”][quote]I seem to be confused. DO kids under 6 go to buxibans now?

And, I thought teaching kindy (kids under 6) was illegal anyway? (as fas a foreigner + English was involved).

What does this law actually change?
[/quote]

As is my understanding the current law states that no foreigner can teach in a kindergarten. Because of that law, many kindergartens that are English only are now registered as “buxibans”. Therefore they somewhat circumvent that law. Thus, there are many many kids under 5 who attend these buxiban/preschool/kindergartens. These schools run the gamut of your typical English language factory type buxibans that glues kids asses to the chair for a few hours a day to the schools that and operate as a legitimate preschool/kindergartens emphaisizing learning through play and experiencial activities and song and dance. The later is not the type of school this new proposed law is targeting, but the former. However, how do you specifically target the one and not the other?

Also, to further answer your question, there are buxibans out there designed for pre-K kids to get a head start in math, science, and other subjects or learning skills. Some these do border on child abuse, and warrant some type of regulation.

What this law is supposed to change is to remove all of these kids ages 3-5 (some schools take 2 year-olds) from the buxibans and get them into accredited pre-Ks and Ks with certified teachers. That is the idea. It hardly seems enforceable as demand for these buxibans remains high, and there seems to be a built in exception/loophole (teaching art or music and dance). Nonetheless, if it passes, it will be interesting which school are able to circumvent the law, which ones close, and if anything really changes at all.

My opinion is to just do away with the old “foreigners can’t teach in kindergarten” and allow school to hire certified foreigners to teach in bilingual kindergartens so everything can then me regulated and options remain open for parents wanting Western-style pre-K and English instruction. This current proposal seems to be aimed at that, but seems excessive to me.

Let’s wait and see if it passes before we sweat our pants about it too much.[/quote]

I believe it’s (the current law) English cannot be taught in kindergarten, not a no foreigner thing. It just happens that foreigners aren’t licensed to teach anything else here so it appears to be no foreigners in kindie. My wife, who is Taiwanese and teaches English in kindergarten gets a (unpaid) morning off every few weeks because the authorities check the schools to make sure English is not taught. The main difference is she can’t be deported if caught, although she could still be fined.[/quote]

This is not my understanding, but you may be right. I hear the local (Chinese language) Kindergartens singing their English songs and having their weekly English lesson all the time. I find this hard to believe. I do know (from Forumosa’s Legal thread) that foreigners are not allowed to work in preschools or kindergartens at all, no matter what they teach.

[cfimages]

She teaches daily, so it might be daily English is not allowed, but weekly is ok.

[Feiren]

I don’t think the rule is that foreigners per se can’t work in kindergartens or daycare. Rather, to work in a kindergarten or daycare, you need to have taken a certain number of credits in in early childhood education.

[timmyjames]

Ahh, I kinda get it now. And my wife just told me about the pre-K cram schools (F that!). Well, I personally don’t want to teach anyone under 6 anyway, so whatever.

But yeah, it’s not a bad idea, but knowing the Taiwan Gov., they will end up causing more harm then good.

[James226]

[quote=“timmyjames”]Ahh, I kinda get it now. And my wife just told me about the pre-K cram schools (F that!). Well, I personally don’t want to teach anyone under 6 anyway, so whatever.

But yeah, it’s not a bad idea, but knowing the Taiwan Gov., they will end up causing more harm then good.[/quote]

I basically agree too. While the best time for children to learn additional languages is between 4 and 7 (from what I’ve read regarding brain development and language capacity), sending kids less than 6 years old to a buxiban is just ridiculous and borders on the cruel. Let them have normal childhoods!

I also agree that sending kids to a bad buxiban can do more harm than good. I’ve heard of foreign teachers who really don’t give a shit about that they’re doing, and they’ll do things like give the kids horrible English names like ‘Lightbulb’ or ‘Dishwasher.’

I mean, if it was something like a daycare program, that’d be different – somewhere for kids to go for a few hours while their parents are still at work; if you wanted to have some English instruction and games at something like that, great. But if it’s a buxiban-type environment with forced study, that’s just stupid.

[jwbrunken]

I mean, if it was something like a daycare program, that’d be different – somewhere for kids to go for a few hours while their parents are still at work; if you wanted to have some English instruction and games at something like that, great. But if it’s a buxiban-type environment with forced study, that’s just stupid.

This is the problem. Because of the rules against foreigners teaching English in kindy and preschools, those schools who do have outstanding play-oriented daycare/preschool programs have to register as buxibans, thus getting lumped into the same category as English learning sweatshops. This new law will cause those schools, who do provide a valuable service for those demanding a Western-style, English-only instruction for their children, a big headache at the very least or, at worst, shut them down completely.

As a foreign spouse living in Taiwan who can’t afford the international schools, I appreciate the availability of such programs for my 3 year old. Good, bilingual daycare/preschool is hard to find here at reasonable prices. Despite the possible benefits this legislation may provide, I, for one, hope the bill as it is currently worded, does not pass.

[GuyInTaiwan]

Given that there are many existing laws (not just in education) that don’t get enforced, what makes anyone think any new one would be enforced? Every man and his dog would be circumventing it in some manner or another.

As to requiring certified foreign preschool teachers, that’s completely unworkable. The demand far outstrips the supply, probably by one hundred to one. It’s simply not going to happen.

[ice_raven]

Because of money.

The police do their job when people complain and make them do it. So, other than taking their monthly bribes, they never do their job of stopping shop owners putting potplants, deep-fry cookers, racks of shoes, and even complete barricades right across the footpath, because no-body complains about it.

But when you have a legal bushiban, and an illegal competitor opens up, the legal one will take action damn fast to try to get them shut down.

This law has got to be about money. Someone’s got to be making dough from it somewhere, even if it’s Hess running “English music and art classes”, and they’ll be quick to call the cops when it suits them.

[GuyInTaiwan]

ice raven: It just means everyone has to pay the police (which they’re probably already doing). I don’t think it changes anything, even if you do make it about money. It has to be about money without the possibility of bribing anyone. That’s what’s not going to change.

[tempogain]

@timmyjames

Ahh, I kinda get it now. And my wife just told me about the pre-K cram schools (F that!).

Yeah that makes sense.

[Charlie_Jack]

Just in case anyone is interested, here’s a link to a June 2006 thread related to this topic:
link

Here’s a link to a June 8, 2006, China Post article quoted by 2Matt in the thread:
link

Here’s another link, this one to a March 2006 thread related to this topic:
[url=http://tw.forumosa.com/t/where-can-this-law-be-found/26349/1

Here’s a link to a February 28, 2006, Liberty Times article (in Chinese) linked by Tigerman in the thread:
link

[anglophonus]

One of the subjects specifically forbidden under the new rules is speed-reading.

SPEED-reading. For kids under 6. Think about it.

[Chris]

Yeah, that struck me as odd too.

OT: Speed-reading was a big thing in the 70s. But I haven’t heard much about it since. Didn’t know people still did it.

[Charlie_Jack]

The quote below is from the 2006 Liberty Times article that I linked earlier:

事實上，目前有十一個縣市已明文禁止補習班招收六歲以下幼童，包括台北縣、基隆市、桃園縣、新竹縣、新竹市、南投縣、嘉義市、高雄縣、屏東縣、金門縣及連江縣。

My Chinese is not good enough for me to be completely sure what it says, and I used a machine translation, but I think I know what it says.

If it says what I think it does, and if the reporting was accurate, and if the situation described in the above quote still exists, then I learned something from the portion of the article quoted above.

Here’s the link to the Liberty Times article again.

[Chris]

事實上，目前有十一個縣市已明文禁止補習班招收六歲以下幼童，包括台北縣、基隆市、桃園縣、新竹縣、新竹市、南投縣、嘉義市、高雄縣、屏東縣、金門縣及連江縣。

“In fact, there are currently 11 cities and counties which explicitly prohibit buxibans from enrolling children aged six or under: namely, Taipei County, Keelung City, Taoyuan County, Hsinchu County, Hsinchu City, Nantou County, Chiayi City, Kaohsiung County, Pingtung County, Kinmen County and Lienchiang County.”

[Charlie_Jack]

Thanks, Chris!

[steelersman]

[quote=“jwbrunken”][quote]I seem to be confused. DO kids under 6 go to buxibans now?

And, I thought teaching kindy (kids under 6) was illegal anyway? (as fas a foreigner + English was involved).

What does this law actually change?
[/quote]

As is my understanding the current law states that no foreigner can teach in a kindergarten. Because of that law, many kindergartens that are English only are now registered as “buxibans”. Therefore they somewhat circumvent that law. Thus, there are many many kids under 5 who attend these buxiban/preschool/kindergartens. These schools run the gamut of your typical English language factory type buxibans that glues kids asses to the chair for a few hours a day to the schools that and operate as a legitimate preschool/kindergartens emphaisizing learning through play and experiencial activities and song and dance. The later is not the type of school this new proposed law is targeting, but the former. However, how do you specifically target the one and not the other?

Also, to further answer your question, there are buxibans out there designed for pre-K kids to get a head start in math, science, and other subjects or learning skills. Some these do border on child abuse, and warrant some type of regulation.

What this law is supposed to change is to remove all of these kids ages 3-5 (some schools take 2 year-olds) from the buxibans and get them into accredited pre-Ks and Ks with certified teachers. That is the idea. It hardly seems enforceable as demand for these buxibans remains high, and there seems to be a built in exception/loophole (teaching art or music and dance). Nonetheless, if it passes, it will be interesting which school are able to circumvent the law, which ones close, and if anything really changes at all.

My opinion is to just do away with the old “foreigners can’t teach in kindergarten” and allow school to hire certified foreigners to teach in bilingual kindergartens so everything can then me regulated and options remain open for parents wanting Western-style pre-K and English instruction. This current proposal seems to be aimed at that, but seems excessive to me.

Let’s wait and see if it passes before we sweat our pants about it too much.[/quote]

Yes, doing away with the law would seem the most sensible. Now if we could really find out why the law was passed in the first place it would be interesting. The governments rhetoric of learning English will stunt their progress in Chinese is just rhetoric.

Part of the reason might be to keep jobs and money in the hands of Taiwanese. Or some government officials are making too much money from kindergartens being illegal. If we only knew the truth of the matter!

[tempogain]

My reading is it’s more of a cultural/political thing. Foreigners influencing young minds during their early development and impacting on their “Chineseness.”