Anyone teaching in a kindergarten should pay attention to this at least in the short term.
This is more serious than it might appear to some. ‘Censure’ sounds weak but civil servants generally take it pretty seriously. It can affect all-important promotions, perfomance evaluations, and bonuses. So it’s possible the departments of education will take at least some action. Foreign teachers could easily be caught working illegally and end up having to leave Taiwan and never being able to work here again.
This article in the Liberty Times has more details. Most importantly, it has the Taipei City Department of Education’s response. My reading of the response is that the Department of Education is somewhat defiant and is not going to do all that much.
But it’s also possible that they are just defending their past record. If so, that would not preclude more enforcement now that they are on notice.
Here’s an account of the Hsinchu case. The Control Yuan found that Hsinchu city inspected a buxiban operating a kindergarten illegally five times but failed to fine them. Hsinchu city says it did nothing wrong.
It’s entirely possible that these departments of education will just go through the motions as usual because their politician bosses do not want to lose votes by closing these popular programs.
Past practice woud suggest that there might be enhanced enforcement for a few months during which a few unlucky foreign English teachers might get caught. But you never know.
The 39-page Control Yuan report is here. Foreign teachers hired by buxibans and illegally working in kindergartens is mentioned ten times. They are well aware that there are conflicting and confusing rules in different cities and counties and are demanding comprehensive harmonization.