HA! They should all be deported for coming here without reading about the laws first. Are those same people drinking the tap water here? I hope not! :loco:
What amuses me about this discussion is that no one seems to think it’s wrong for a business to hire a person under false pretenses (i.e., representing that it is okay to work there). As long as the business provides an escape route so that the employee can test his or her agility should the need arise, it seems, people think everything is great.
Sheesh. 
Oh ironlady, you just don’t understand Taiwan buxiban practice 
[quote=“ironlady”]What amuses me about this discussion is that no one seems to think it’s wrong for a business to hire a person under false pretenses (i.e., representing that it is okay to work there). As long as the business provides an escape route so that the employee can test his or her agility should the need arise, it seems, people think everything is great.
Sheesh. [/quote]
Actually, I do think it is very wrong for a business to do this. I am pro-teacher on this issue. If there is a strong demand for English kindergarten instruction, the people ought to lobby for the law to be changed. If it is really to be illegal, then schools must be shut down. Period. Most of these large English kindies operate in plain view, advertising English instruction. These places could be closed in a day if there were any will do it. One has to wonder who benefits from the current state of affairs. This sporadic enforcement and murky regulatory environment (read defacto look the other way— most of the time) create a condition where teachers will be recuited into jobs that are illegal for them to accept, all without knowing the legality of what they are doing. Schools don’t volunteer this information, most likely because it will make recruitment of staff more difficult. This leads to situations like the OP relates.
Anyway, Ironlady, you are not the only one who believes what these businesses do is unethical.
I do recognise that schools here may be more cavalier when it comes to recruiting for preschool teaching. Young kids are where a lot of the easy money appears to be, after all.
I haven’t seen anyone say that. I certainly haven’t said that. I have applauded my school for telling me exactly where I stood before I started work.
And that wasn’t even a pre-school issue, that was the standard ‘start-work-before-you-get-your-ARC’ thing which everyone here considers a complete non-issue.
Let your school offend the right person with connections and wait and see how much of a non-issue it is. Problem is that you’re the one who stands to get deported and blacklisted (I mean by immigration, not by the buxiban association).
I’ve made my opinions on this subject pretty obvious in a discussion over at Daves.
I have not seen a single person defending the practice, and I don’t believe that there is a single person that will.
I would like to know though, what are the repercussions to working within the preschool program at a school such as Kojen. I am not talking about what the legislation says, I am talking about actual teacher experiences of raids.
To my knowledge people run around a lot, and if they get caught they get a warning. In some cases there may be fines involved, but that is rare. I have never heard of anyone being deported for working in the kindergarten department of a chain school provided that they had an ARC to work in Taiwan.
Can anyone comment further about this?
So basically, the whole thing is silliness on behalf of the government, in that they should make a decision one way or another. There is no doubt about that. I don’t see that schools have much choice in the matter, but it does seem to me that teachers have the ultimate choice, and any teacher who works in a kindergarten in Taiwan is either doing so willingly or without having conducted an appropriate level of research.
How is that going to happen, given that I’m fully legal?
[quote=“brian”]To my knowledge people run around a lot, and if they get caught they get a warning. In some cases there may be fines involved, but that is rare. I have never heard of anyone being deported for working in the kindergarten department of a chain school provided that they had an ARC to work in Taiwan.
Can anyone comment further about this?[/quote]
Brian, I concur. I have never heard of it either. I’ve heard of people being caught teaching at kindies, been warned and/or fined but not deported.
Nor have I heard of anyone being deported for working at more than one school, or a school not on their ARC.
Nor have I heard of anyone being deported because they were working while their ARC was still being processed.
I may have missed something, of course. I’ve only been here a year.
It is true that have been raids Kojen, and some teachers have been caught and taken to the police station. But none have been deported or had to pay a fine themselves. Most are given a warning and let go. It is the owner that gets the fines if there are any. Kojen is not the only school that has had to deal with situation. Hess, Kid’s Castle, Joy and others have all been inspected, and there haven’t been a proven case where a teacher caught has been deported.
BTW, these raids have nothing to do with the police. I was talking with some police officers and they told me that they are hired by the CLA to accompany them on the inspections. Just as a safety precaution. Most of the police officers don’t even want to go, or don’t give a rats ass about foreigner teaching in kindies. They even think the whole thing is silly.
Question for Teach2005. After you knew that you were lied to, and were in fact working illegally, why the heck did you continue to work there?
Like most things in Taiwan, the rigor with which regulations are enforced on this kind of thing goes in waves. Usually it’s high just before Chinese New Year, when they’ll actually announce sweeps in the Chinese newspapers. It also varies by area, government official and so on.
The fact is that you are deportable if you are working pre-ARC or without an ARC, and certainly if you are caught in a kindy. If you’re in your 20s and have no dependents and live on the cheap, life is something of a joke, and who cares anyway, the risks are small. As you get older and spend more time in Taiwan (or elsewhere), you’ll probably begin to accumulate responsibilities and things like “how big is the risk anyway” will take on a new meaning. If you have no particular ties to Taiwan and are just on the island to make a quick buck, score a few xiaojies and have a year off, then naturally you won’t particularly care about the potential for deportation, even if you’ve never heard of it happening to anyone. Heck, you can always hop a plane for Thailand, Korea, or whereever.
Sure, usually the matter is resolved with the payment of a fine by the owners. If you want to arrange your job that way, be my guest. There are certainly plenty of buxibans in Taiwan who would love to have you dodge through the hidden door for them. But many people prefer a more stable situation – one where they know for sure they will be able to work the next day, and receive their pay the next week.
Personally I say just throw the whole English teaching market open like it used to be before the days of ARCs, when you didn’t need any sort of permit to teach, tutor, or do any job you could talk the boss into giving you. Now those were the days. 
And the fact is that this is highly unlikely to happen, despite being technically possible.
I’m so glad this doesn’t describe me (early thirties, married, taking life very seriously).
The latter, as I have said, is what I have. And I feel totally secure as a result.
Those were the bad old days.
I honestly don’t see Brian blaming the victim.
And the fact is that this is highly unlikely to happen, despite being technically possible.
[/quote]
Not at all impossible or unlikely. I know of someone who was pre-ARC that was deported and forbidden to return to Taiwan for five years. Happened six months ago.
And the fact is that this is highly unlikely to happen, despite being technically possible.
[/quote]
Not at all impossible or unlikely. I know of someone who was pre-ARC that was deported and forbidden to return to Taiwan for five years. Happened six months ago.[/quote]
Certainly possible, as I said. But until we can find more than one person in the last 6 months, it remains ‘unlikely’.
Well, if the economic security of your wife and family rate at a level where “unlikely” is acceptable, that’s your call. I’m glad my husband takes a somewhat more serious approach to his job, which is important for the stability of our family. At least your willingness to dodge through escape hatches speaks well to your level of physical fitness. 
teach2005,
Thanks for helping us out by your post. I feel that the more information we have on what goes on in the schools here, the better off we are. Posts like yours are quite valuable.
Take care,
xp+10K
I honestly have no idea what you are talking about. I am fully legal, and have taken the appropriate legal steps to ensure this - I have received a fully legal ARC, and I work at the school for which I am registered. I don’t work at the Kojen preschool, and I’ve never had to ‘dodge through escape hatches’ in my life.
I’ve said this more than once.