Opening an English school for adults, regulations same as a buxiban?

I was pondering opening a teaching center for adults, basically just a classroom with a few students, maybe different classes on different days. From a previous question it seems I can’t legally have more than 4 students even if they’re spread out over several days:

I know there are a lot of regulations for setting up and getting a license for a buxiban for school-age kids. Is it the same when you’re planning to teach adults? If I just wanted to open, for example, a test prep or conversation class for adults, do I have to go through the same process as I would for opening a kid’s school?

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I am interested in this. I have some savings, maybe I could use that little money to get an enterpreneur visa and open a language school.

It takes more than a little savings to get an entrepreneur visa. The industry is saturated, so it’s not something you can do for a quick return if you don’t have experience in the industry.

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I think it takes 500000NT dollars. Maybe it’s not “little savings”.
I don’t have experience running a school, that’s true. Just as a teacher.

Yeah. Some regs are different, but you still need to get licensed, sure.

That should get you started. I don’t know about getting an entrepreneur’s visa, though. Are you currently in Taiwan?

That gives you more qualification than many people running schools. What were you a teacher of?

As a business or as a buxiban? I suppose anything you do that earns a profit should have a business license, but if you teach adults, what’s required? All the information I find is for kid’s schools.

It’ll still be a buxiban. In Taipei?

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Exactly – whether the students are children or adults is not the key.

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Damn. I thought that was the case, but I was hoping the regulations wouldn’t be as tight. That shelves that idea.
Let me run this by you. What if I rented a classroom in a licensed school, but marketed a class under my own name? Is there a legal way of doing that without getting overly complicated? Could I collect payment from the students myself and report it as self-employment income, or would I have to be an employee of that school and run everything through their accounting, which they wouldn’t likely want, and then I’m just another employee, which I don’t want.
There are business centers that rent small office spaces. Does anything like that exit with classrooms instead of offices? I’ve looked, but I can’t find any. It could be a good business model, if someone else went through all the regulations to set up classrooms that fulfill all the regulations. I suppose the teachers would still have to jump through the hoops to get licensed.
It may not be worth it for one class.

If you opened a B2B consultancy whose range of services encompassed coaching or training for specified purposes, including language, do you think that would still fall under buxiban regulations?
Edit: I was thinking about doing something along those lines in a couple years so will need to do my own research, just wondering if anyone knows offhand.

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If it meets the definition of buxiban in the city/county government’s buxiban regulations, then it’s a buxiban. So call it what you like, but if you’re secretly running a buxiban, you’re secretly running a buxiban.

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Thanks. I need to look up the regulations
The intent is not to run a buxiban, secretly or otherwise. The large company I work for often hires outside consultants to come in and do all sorts of training, sometimes lasting many days spread out over weeks. This is kind of what I had in mind. If that meets the definition of a buxiban I guess Is have to register as such. But that would be a fairly small component of the consultancy.

Which city?

Me? Taipei. Not there yet though.

Here’s the Chinese version of Taipei City’s:
https://www.rootlaw.com.tw/LawArticle.aspx?LawID=B010050080000400-1080430

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Much appreciated.

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I’d like to call it “a small class” but since everything I described has a fixed location I suppose it’s a buxibian.
I got it! I’ll hold class on a bus!
Nevermind. It was a good start to an idea.

I suppose there is still an outside chance I could convince a school to hire me and only pay me what I earn, while I pay them for the use of the room. I think in that set up they can’t hire me as an hourly employee and would have to pay me on commission. I’m not sure if it’s possible to sign an employment contract in which the employee is paid depending on the profit they bring in and pays back the difference (rent) if no profit is earned. I’d have to take a lawyer to explain that to any school I proposed it to.
Fks, it’s easier if I just start marketing other people’s classes on commission, but that’s going to be a hard start.

It’s probably not useful, but what you’re talking about reminded me of the setup of My Dear Teacher. I wonder whether they’d have rooms to rent more like the relationship you’re suggesting?

If you try to set it up as “everything is normal, I work for the boss like all the other teachers, but the payment structure is different” then my take is it won’t work (legally) because the authorities will deem you both an employee and (under the LSA) a worker whether you like it or not, ergo every irregularity in wages, insurance, etc. will put at least one party at risk, sometimes both parties.

If you set it up more like a partnership, it should be possible as far as your contractual relationship with the other party is concerned, but then there’s the question of whether or not the local education department will approve of the buxiban operating in that manner (with a kind of buxiban-within-a-buxiban).

Let us know if you find a solution. :slight_smile: