I’m starting a faculty position at a major public Taiwanese university in August/September and am applying for a work permit through the Ministry of Education. My PhD is from a major US university.
I defend my dissertation in a few days and will deposit late June. The degree will be officially conferred on August 11, but the diploma won’t be available until mid-October, and the transcript with the conferred degree only becomes available around September 2.
My university provides a Degree Certification Letter confirming that all requirements are completed and that conferral will happen on August 11, and their website states this letter is valid for visa/employment purposes, at least in the US.
Does anyone know if the MOE will accept this letter in lieu of the diploma or transcript to issue the work permit? Any additional document I can request my university/department? I know that they are quite strict at MOE, but internationally, it is extremely common to start a position as Assistant Professor without the diploma (since they take more than two months), just the university verification.
I’m surprised the university has offered you a contract when you haven’t had the degree authenticated by the Taiwan trade office in the country where you did the degree.
My 2nd rate university took care of the work permit, I never had to contact the MOE. Seems strange a major public university would leave you to do this yourself if they are actually expecting you to come.
I don’t know if the MOE will accept anything but a completed degree with the authentication process finished, but it seems unlikely…
Fraud and face saving are very common here, I hope you haven’t bought a plane ticket yet…
Oh, and congrats
Edit: also, if you don’t get a good response the first time you try with the MOE, see if you can contact someone else. Even the people who are supposed to know often don’t know. So maybe the first person is wrong, or the second is lucky for you!
The MOE does not issue permits / visas, as I am sure you know. They do however offer your work contract. And for that contract to be at the assistant professor level at a national universitity you almost always[1] will need the PhD degree in hand and it must have been verified and notarized for that the degree to be recognized. There was clearly fraud in the past (before my time) and this extremely strange and unfamiliar system was evidently set up to combat that fraud. I am quite certain you are not a fraudster but you are caught in this system designed to deal with it.
I hope this works out for you. Once you get into the public system here in Taiwan, there are many other perks waiting. But getting in will unfortunately involve dealing with some odd aspects like the one you are experiencing now. Let us know how it goes.
Guy
The only exceptions I’ve seen are certain “techinical specialists” hired at the assistant professor level; I doubt you’re in that category as the vast majority of new hires are in the basic research asssistant professor group, and they do need to have the PhD in hand. ↩︎
Thanks for this input. It’s not impossible that I have some foggy recollections here . . .
I guess the key point for @Cenfr and indeed for anyone seeking full-time academic employment in Taiwan’s public universities (aka “National” universities) is that all pieces must align, from the MOE certification as an assistant professor (with a PhD degree authenticated and notarized) to university approval to department approval. A lot of the success of this process depends on the support staff you’re dealing with, so in all cases be unfailingly polite, and of course do seek clarification at each step to ensure this works. I hope things do work. Good luck!
If you have a PhD from a major US university then you should consider applying for a Gold Card in the field of Education if the university is in the worlds top 500. This will allow you to come directly as a resident and has some extra perks.
I know for the Gold Card application they just state:
A graduation certificate issued to the person by one of the top 500 universities listed in the most recent QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, or U.S. News & World Report Rankings after the person completed a doctorate there.
