P.G. Dip. not accepted for work permit

Just wondering if any of you fine people can offer any advice. I had an ARC issued last year (2005) by submitting my P.G. Diploma, from an English university. Recently I’ve had to apply for a new work permit, but they’ve turned it down, giving two separate reasons:

  1. That the diploma is a certificate of attendance but not graduation. (This is wrong, the diploma clearly states I have successfully completed the program and been awarded the diploma)

  2. That the university is not an approved university. (It is actually a pretty major and well established one in the U.K.)

I don’t have a B.A, I have a National Diploma, and Higher National Diploma, and a Post Grad, which is equivalent to an M.A. As I mentioned, I had no problems getting a work permit last year with these qualifications.

I’ve got the number of someone in the Bureau of Employment and Vocational blah blah of Labour Affairs etc who can speak English and has promised to look into it…she promised to call me back yesterday, and predictably didn’t. No suprise there…I’ll be hassling her like crazy on Monday. Just wondered if anyone had any thoughts on how to proceed.

Which uni did you do your postgrad at?

Repeated appeals might help.
Typically, the responsible official (in this case, the reader/arbiter of diploma and degree veracity) holds their position because they have convinced their superiors that they’re an “expert”, and in typical Taiwan bureaucratic fashion, nobody else, including those who hired/placed them, is capable of judging their competence.
Who’s he?
He’s Supervisor Chen, the (local) English supervisor.
Who hired him?
Manager Lin.
Manager Lin doesn’t speak English.
That’s right, that’s why we got the supervisor.
So how do they know the supervisor is qualified?
Manager Lin says he is.

The guy at the DOE probably has zero experience with any post-secondary system other than the standard US Bachelor/Master’s/PhD lexicon.

2 true stories:
My office was exploring the possibility of sponsoring an attorney from one of our associate firms for a single year’s contract. In the process of checking the visa situation, the gov’t office turned down his process 3 times because he didn’t have a “degree”…they didn’t know what a JD was…
Years ago I worked at what was then Taiwan’s biggest bushiban chain, at the head office. There was a guy hired specifically by the owner to check applicant’s paperwork, specifically diplomas etc. Buddy came into our office one day, asking if anyone spoke German, because he had a diploma in German and couldn’t read it. We took a look at it, and sure enough…it was Latin…

agree with chief - a friend in charge of applications says that it’s not strange to have people denied one week, and then accepted a week later upon reapplication … really no rhyme or reason for it, but that’s the way it is.

send all the crap in again …

[quote=“xtrain”]agree with chief - a friend in charge of applications says that it’s not strange to have people denied one week, and then accepted a week later upon reapplication … really no rhyme or reason for it, but that’s the way it is.

send all the crap in again …[/quote]

Yeah, this isn’t as retarded as it sounds…OK, sorry, it IS retarded, but there’s a reason (sort of)…when I was a manager at (huge Taiwan-based corporation) and was hiring foreign staff, the situation at the Ministry was basically described as this:
There’s, say, 10 desks.
Apps come in and are distributed to one of the desks. The dude at that desk is then responsible for processing that app.
Here’s the best part, and I swear to god I am not making this up or exaggerating, this information came directly from the guy at the Ministry.
10-15% of the qualifying documentation is at the discretion of the case processor…
This means that out of, say 5 applications, one can get sent back for not including a document that was never required in the other 4.
And that’s the way they roll, baby…

I would contact the British Education office at the BTCO in Taipei. If they were willing they might be able to help a bit…at least, they should be able to indicate whether the docs you have submitted should be acceptable. Most non-Brits dealing with the British education system require a glossary at least to figure out what everything is, so I wouldn’t lose hope yet, you might be able to straighten it all out.

:bravo:
Sound (and unlike mine, constructive :blush:) advice.

Prepare, too, for the possibility that your uni is NOT on the accepted list. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a crap uni – just that it’s not on the list, for whatever (or no) reason. But definitely give it another shot first. The organization at the BTCO is called (or was called) ATEC – Anglo Taiwan Higher Education Center.

Cheers for all your feedback. Much appreciated.

Indiana wrote:[quote]Which uni did you do your postgrad at?[/quote]

At the University of Hertfordshire, which is a pretty big uni.

xtrain wrote:[quote]agree with chief - a friend in charge of applications says that it’s not strange to have people denied one week, and then accepted a week later upon reapplication … really no rhyme or reason for it, but that’s the way it is.

send all the crap in again …[/quote]

Yus…I reckon so, and hope it lands on the desk of someone with a bit more sense.

ironlady wrote:[quote]I would contact the British Education office at the BTCO in Taipei. If they were willing they might be able to help a bit…at least, they should be able to indicate whether the docs you have submitted should be acceptable. Most non-Brits dealing with the British education system require a glossary at least to figure out what everything is, so I wouldn’t lose hope yet, you might be able to straighten it all out.[/quote]

Good advice…I tried the BTCO last week: they weren’t very useful…they gave me a number for someone at the COLA, but it was unobtainable. :unamused: I didn’t know that there was a British Education office there though, so, thanks.

ironlady wrote:[quote]Prepare, too, for the possibility that your uni is NOT on the accepted list. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a crap uni – just that it’s not on the list, for whatever (or no) reason. But definitely give it another shot first. The organization at the BTCO is called (or was called) ATEC – Anglo Taiwan Higher Education Center.[/quote]

And thanks again! I’m not going to take this lying down.

the chief: good insights into the ludicrous mechanisms of this bureaucratic nonsense…anyone seen ‘Brazil’?

So…all advice taken on board and will be duly acted upon…I’ll keep you informed.[/quote]

Could the British Council help maybe? There is one in Taipei and one in Kaohsiung.

I tried them already; and they gave me the number of the BTCO, who in turn referred me back to the British Council…I now have my hoop jumping shoes on, though, so i will try them again.

Well I made a few phonecalls to the woman I spoke to on Friday, who said she’d get back to me and didn’t. She was really helpful, but eventually said that she’d have to refer me back to the woman who was dealing with my case: the one thad had turned my permit down initially, and who stated point blank that i couldnt get a permit on a with a post-grad. My heart sank.

Just got a phonecall from a woman identifying herself only as ‘Tracy’, who apologised and told me there had been a mistake and my permit is going to be issued ASAP. Cool. So I phoned up the first woman and got her name so I can send her a bunch of flowers for sorting out in 3 hours a process which has been causing me grief since early March.

I reckon one of two things may have happened.

  1. The woman dealing with my permit didn’t know what a postgrad is and so blindly said ‘no,no,no,no,no’ instead of checking with a superior, because doing so would mean acknowledging that she didn’t know what a postgrad was.

  2. When I applied for a permit last year, I had to get a new passport, because my old one didn’t have the required number of pages in. So my original application for my permit had a different passport number than my current application. Not sure why this would cause problems, but it’s confusing enough to, I guess.

Whatever…point is the woman in question was really, really helpful, and when I thanked her she said ‘Not at all…I’m just doing my duty’…so helpful people do actually exist in the council of labour affairs…hurrah!

My faith in this odd little place is greatly restored (until the next time…cue twilight zone music).

Thanks again for all suggestions :bravo:

I didn’t read your post thoroughly enough before, and just noticed the above.

A PG Dip is NOT equivalent to an MA. It is a diploma, not a Masters Degree. This is probably why there was a lot of confusion.

I didn’t read your post thoroughly enough before, and just noticed the above.

A PG Dip is NOT equivalent to an MA. It is a diploma, not a Masters Degree. This is probably why there was a lot of confusion.[/quote]

I could have worded that better…sorry. The postgrad I did was Masters level.

A weird little twist to the story…I got my permit and changed my visitor visa to a resident visa and hotfooted it to my local foreign affairs police dept. They punched in my details on the computer and suddenly the office was a hive of activity…lots of staff coming in, looking at my face, and the screen, then back to my face. Eventually they turned the screen round to show it to me and there was my file, name, passport number, address etc…but with a photo of some Chinese/Taiwanese dude on it!

They wanted to know if it was my boss/coworker/friend/pimp/O.K cashier. I was visibly shocked and didn’t recognise the guy, but was very concerned that my file had a picture of someone else on it. The police, however, thought it was hilarious, and said that they would change the photo if I wanted, but that I should weigh it up first, considering the guy in the photo was a lot more handsome than me.

Ho! Ho! :loco: Absolute piffle. I am utterly gorgeous.