Teaching English Requirements

But if locals can’t do the same kind of work without a permit, it’s much less surprising.

Same as the one @airirow posted (the former is MOJ, the latter MOE). But did anyone at the MOE actually say this was relevant to foreigners with open work rights?

Article 1
These Regulations are prescribed in accordance with the provisions of Article 5, Paragraph 2, of the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals.

第 1 條
本辦法依外國專業人才延攬及僱用法(以下簡稱本法)第五條第二項規定訂定之。

Note that it’s not the Employment Service Act. However, when we go to the Act for the Recuitment & Employment of Foreign Professionals (which sets different rules for normal, “special”, and “senior” foreign professionals), we find this:

Article 4
Terms used in this Act are defined as follows:
[…]
4. “Professional work” means the following work:
(1) Work as listed in Article 46 Paragraph 1 Subparagraphs 1 to 6 of the Employment Services Act.
(2) Possessing specialized knowledge or skill, and approved by the central competent authority in consultation with the Ministry of Education as a teacher of non-academic classes in a short-term tutorial school registered in accordance with the Supplementary Education Act.

That means the AREFP supplements (or overrides) the ESA as far as “white collar” work is concerned – but that’s for ESA Art. 46 Par. 1, to which foreigners with open work rights are not subject.

Then this:

Article 5
An employer hiring a foreign professional to engage in professional work in the State, as referred to in Subparagraph 4 Item 1 of the preceding Article, shall apply for a permit to the Ministry of Labor, submitting the relevant documents therewith, and the application shall be processed in accordance with the provisions of the Employment Services Act. However, an employer of a school teacher as described in Article 46 Paragraph 1 Subparagraph 3 of the Employment Services Act shall apply for a permit to the Ministry of Education, submitting the relevant documents therewith, and shall not be subject to the provisions of Article 48 Paragraph 1 of the Employment Services Act requiring a permit application to the Ministry of Labor.

Regulations on qualification, screening criteria, permit application, permit cancellation, employment supervision, and other relevant matters relating to school teachers as referred to in the preceding provision shall be set by the Ministry of Education, and shall not be subject to the provisions of Article 46 Paragraph 2 and Article 48 Paragraph 2 of the Employment Services Act.

ESA Art. 48 Par. 1 is the one that exempts PR’s and foreign spouses:

Article 48
Prior to employing foreign worker to engage in work, employer shall apply to the central competent authority for employment permit with relevant documents submitted. However, the following foreigners are exempted:

  1. A foreign worker to be employed as consultant or researcher by the respective government or their subordinate academic research institutes.
  2. A foreign worker has married a national of the Republic of China with a registered permanent residence in the Republic of China and has been permitted to stay therein.
  3. A foreigner employed at a public or registered private college/university in the field of a course of lectures or an academic research approved by the Ministry of Education.

I suspect there’s a misunderstanding here, intentional or not. The first part of ESA Art. 48 Par. 1 seems redundant, as ESA Art. 43 already establishes that the employer needs to obtain a work permit.

Article 43
Unless otherwise specified in the Act, no foreign worker may engage in work within the Republic of China should his/her employer have not yet obtained a permit via application therefore.

However, Art. 48 Par. 1 also stipulates that the central competent authority (i.e. the Ministry of Labor, of which the Workforce Development Agency is a part) is responsible for issuing work permits, so to transfer responsibility to the MOE for the work permits of teachers (other than buxiban teachers), the AREFP stipulates that those teachers “不適用就業服務法第四十八條第一項本文向勞動部申請許可之規定”, of which “shall not be subject to the provisions of Article 48 Paragraph 1 of the Employment Services Act requiring a permit application to the Ministry of Labor” seems like a reasonable translation.

If the MOE is saying this actually exempts foreign teachers from ESA Art. 48 Par. 1 period, i.e. open work rights no longer apply to foreign teachers (other than buxiban teachers), that seems like a misreading of the legislative purpose. However, the official legislative reasoning doesn’t really clarify the matter.

https://lis.ly.gov.tw/lglawc/lawsingle?0001402431C10000000000000000014000000004000000^08180106103100^0000C001001

第五條
[…]
理由 一、第一項本文明定雇主聘僱外國專業人才在我國從事第四條第四款第一目之就業服務法第四十六條第一項第一款至第六款之專業工作,其申請許可之主管機關及適用之法規。惟為鼓勵學校擴大延攬外國教師,爰於第一項但書明定聘僱外國專業人才來我國擔任就業服務法第四十六條第一項第三款學校教師工作之許可及管理,回歸教育部主政。
二、因應學校教師工作之許可及管理回歸教育部主政,爰於第二項明定學校教師之資格、審查基準、申請許可、廢止許可、聘僱管理及其他相關事項之辦法,由教育部定之,不適用就業服務法第四十六條第二項及第四十八條第二項規定。

Unofficial translation of bold text:

“But to encourage schools to expand recruitment of foreign teachers, in the proviso of Par. 1 clarifying the work permission and administration of the hiring of foreign professional talent coming to our country to hold positions as Employment Service Act Art. 46 Par. 1 Subpar. 3 school teachers, it is returned to adminstration by the Ministry of Education.”


Tl/dr: it’s not clear.

If I were at one of the schools currently facing a turnover crisis because of this confusion, I would try to get official statements from the MOL (responsible for the ESA), the MOE (responsible for the regulations cited earlier), and the 通用目 of the NDC (responsible for the AREFP) ASAP.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have some alphabet soup to cook… :man_cook:

what I meant is, foreign teachers with work right or open work permit can be hired with the same qualifications with local teachers, in other words, they need taiwanese teacher lisenses to be hired as regular teachers. Taiwanese teacher licenses may be exempted if they are hired as “foreign” teachers based on the foreign teacher employment law, and for that they need teacher licenses by their countries.

But, yes, this is just what I think.

That’s true, but less options and lower pay on average. I found it tough going in a rural township. You can get work eventually, and the advantage is cleaner air and a greener environment.

If you have a work right or open work permit, and get a certificate from your local government, you can be employed without a teacher licence as an Assistant with Special Skills for Junior High and Elementary Schools.

國民中小學教學支援工作人員聘任辦法
“Regulations for the Recruitment of Teaching Assistants with Special Skills for Junior High and Elementary Schools”
https://law.moj.gov.tw/LawClass/LawAll.aspx?pcode=H0070021

Some related posts to the above law are in the linked thread.

the law is not on foreign English teaching assistants, but just on assistants. If you need a work permit by your employer, it cannot be an option.


Foreigners without teacher licence can get work permit to teach at “experimental education schools”.

https://edu.law.moe.gov.tw/LawContent.aspx?id=GL001882

HESS seems to only employ those with only an associate’s that have a US associate’s. IE, if someone were to apply with an associate’s degree from Australia, they’d be turned down. Distance learning/online degrees are also not acceptable. What gives?

From an automated email:

Below are the minimum requirements to apply for an English teaching position. As per government law, there are no exceptions. 
Please do not apply if you do not meet all five criteria below. We will not be able to accept your application.

    Native-level English speaker
    Passport holder from AUS, CAN, IRE, NZ, SA, UK, or USA
    Bachelor's Degree (in any discipline) OR U.S. Associate Degree with a TEFL/TESOL Certificate (diplomas of any kind, online degrees, and distance learning degrees are not accepted)
    100% clear Criminal Record Check at the national level
    One-year commitment

this is a legal requirement.

They accept passports just from 7 countries is a discrimination if there is no legitimate reason they need to do so.

People with associate degrees equivalent with taiwanese associate degree can meet legal requirements to get a work permit.

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I might have missed some context, but I don’t think they limit it to passport holders of only 7 countries. Last year one of the FETs was from Saint Vincent. They speak English there and she held a teaching license there, therefore she was qualified to teach in a public school in TW.

The context you’ve missed is the rest of tando’s sentence you’ve removed.

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Yes well if “legitimate reason” etc “is discrimination” etc. is the only missing context then I guess I didn’t miss much context.
The whole point of requiring native speakers is the idea that only native speakers can teach their native language. As if anyone under the age of 50 walking down the street in Germany / Denmark / Norway / Switzerland / France doesn’t know English better than most Taiwanese university level, PhD earned in then US, English teachers here. Added bonus is that none of them went to cram school to learn English and yet they turned out more competent than most Taiwanese people who spent their entire childhood in those prisons, so they might have some clues on effective language acquisition. But the Taiwanese Government doesn’t want that because the kids “might pick up an accent” or “the speech will be unnatural”. This appears to be the one and only thing about second language acquisition that the government wants to enforce. Call it discrimination, sure.

my point is, if there is no legally acceptable reason that their teachers should be from specific countries, limiting their nationality to the 7 countries is illegal.

We discussed on it here.

Well, it seemed clear to me what tando meant.

We’ve had lengthy discussions on here as to the legality or even existence of the 7 nation passport rule. IIRC the conclusion was that a holder of a passport of a country that has English as an official language can teach English in Taiwan, unless other qualifications are required. As always there are a few anomalies, such as some countries that don’t have English as an official language but are clearly NES are allowed.

You are correct that limiting it to 7 countries would be illegal and discriminatory, but the MOE doesn’t limit it to 7 countries. They just say that your passport needs to be from an English-speaking country. The job posting on the other thread that was posted was from a recruiter, but MOE itself doesn’t limit hiring to those listed countries, as apparently concluded in the other thread. Hence my comment on the FET from Saint Vincent.

Also, the law itself is ironic, since the US, officially, is not English speaking, since there is no official language of the US (as @BiggusDickus pointed out, this does happen), yet Taiwan wants to teach 美語, not 英語.

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yes, you are right that MOE doesn’t limit. In my reply to 11173, I used they to refer to HESS.

That’s exactly why @tando pointed out that it is discriminatory–the MOE doesn’t limit it.

I feel like we’re going in circles here.

Because you’re not understanding seemingly simple statements.

Okedoke

I overlooked that maybe you must clear this condition to work at public school.

銓敘部民國五十四年九月二日(54)臺銓為參字第 0六八八五號函

對於聘僱外籍人士擔任我國公職,在下列三項原則範圍內可予聘僱:(一)在才具方面:以具有專長或特殊技能而本國不易覓得之人才為限。(二)在職位方面:以擔任技術性、科學性不涉及國家機密之職務為限。(三)在任使性質方面:應採取約聘方式以避免涉及我國公務人員任用範圍。