i’ve lately become interested in the range of tuition being charged in buxibans, particularly for elementary and high school classes. i’ve personally seen a range from 100 to 250 per hour, and would like to know what might be considered the average. to that end, what does your school charge?
I find it rather strange that no one has reponded to this. My own experience, and apparently several others, hasn’t been too good in regards to labor-management relations. I’ve been handed forced (unpaid) overtime sometimes pushing on 20 extra hours a week, mysterious pay deductions, severely long (mandatory) staff meetings of unkown content that were entirely in chinese, virtually no communication from management as to what was going on, complete with blame for all mishaps, random schedule changes, and I get the idea from reading these boards that this is not unusual at all.
Yes, I am fairly new.
A chinese speaking person I know was having a little chat with the (very nice) older woman that runs the juice stand across the street, she wanted to send her kid to my school but couldn’t afford it. I saw one of the parents handing over a pretty thick stack of bills to the staff at the desk.
Don’t you ever wonder how much money they’re making off of your labor?
I’ve never asked (because they wouldn’t tell us anyway) but I sure would love to know.
I know, but I’d rather not say on a public forum. Perhaps a poll would encourage some people to share.
If memory serves correctly my old school was about 12-14,000/month. I remember hearing high end schools being around 35,000/month. I never really cared to know, so my numbers may be off.
For how many class hours a week?
This was an all day (8:30-12, 2-4:30, I think, I can’t remember clear right now, one too many beers and no food) all English kindy.
I seem to remember my first full time immersion kindie (9 to 4:30) was around 28000NT$ a month. The second school was about 34,000NT$ a month I think. That may be a bit off but not by too much.
for primary school type bushibans, i’d say an average of $200-$250 per hour of classroom instruction.
250-300hr, depending on the type of class. That’s pretty typical in Taipei.
I am just curious why you would not rather disclose the amount they charge on a public forum. Why should tuition be a secret?
I am just curious why you would not rather disclose the amount they charge on a public forum. Why should tuition be a secret?[/quote]
Actually there’s no good reason. There is clearly nothing at stake in this case. After all, the parents know how much they’re paying. There’s no real interest in the amount being kept secret, is there?
[quote]There’s no real interest in the amount being kept secret, is there?
[/quote]
But oddly enough, schools do get secretive about, it which is kind of stupid seeing as any ‘parent’ could ring up and ask what the fees are. So why dont’ you do that Hank? Get your gf, bf or a Taiwanese mate to ring up a few schools and ask how much it would be to enrol your kids.
From my ‘consultancy’ gig a while back, I remember the school we were dealing with charging roughly 200-350 an hour per student (elementary level).
Brian
thanks for the responses so far. let’s do some math, shall we? 300 per hour x an (all too often conservative) estimate of 15 children per class = 4500 per hour gross for the school. now we subtract your wage (let’s be generous) 800 = 3700. now comes the very big variable of office staff wages, electricity, light, and all other associated overhead. the size of this number will vary depending on location and the size of the school, so i’m not even going to try! however, you could probably take a look at your school, and take a pretty good guess.
as i mentioned above, i find all this very interesting. as an example, i took over a jr. high class halfway through last semester, with 13 students. now the place is jam-packed, 21 of them if they all show. i’m assuming the class was profitable before, so how much extra is my boss getting? now, how much extra am i getting? i know the answer to the latter of these questions, that’s for certain.
anyway, keep the tuition quotes coming!
Fine, I’ll bite. $230,000 for 6 hours a day for 178 days. About $214/hr. x 20 children/class. $140,000 for 2.5 hours a day (half-day kids) for 178 days or $314/hr. x 15 kids. That’s just the kindergarten. Then there’s the buxiban classes. That’s $74,000 for 1.5 hours a day x 178 days or $277/hr. x 12 kids. I also teach a supplemental ESL class for the immersion kids at $24,000 for 1.5 hours a week x 33 weeks (including short weeks) or $484/hr. x 12-15 kids.
I get well paid by my school and they have great facilities, a centralized location in one of the most expensive districts in Taipei, and all the materials and supplies I could want (and reimbursing me for any materials I buy on my own) plus all sorts of great benefits (see the only 178 days a year of teaching above, just one of many other perqs) so I have never been much interested in working out the difference between how much is made on my teaching and how much the school is paying me. 
I am just curious why you would not rather disclose the amount they charge on a public forum. Why should tuition be a secret?[/quote]
Yet nothing from Vannyel. Big surprise there 
…
it’s not as much as you think when you consider the costs are spread among all the classes. just as a rough estimate on a per class basis its probably on the order of teacher salary.
I am just curious why you would not rather disclose the amount they charge on a public forum. Why should tuition be a secret?[/quote]
Yet nothing from Vannyel. Big surprise there …[/quote]
forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … 0&start=60
I am sorry…did you not believe me when I said I am not a teacher 
I really, really don’t teach.
[quote=“ImaniOU”]
I get well paid by my school and they have great facilities, a centralized location in one of the most expensive districts in Taipei, and all the materials and supplies I could want (and reimbursing me for any materials I buy on my own) plus all sorts of great benefits (see the only 178 days a year of teaching above, just one of many other perqs) so I have never been much interested in working out the difference between how much is made on my teaching and how much the school is paying me. [/quote]
this brings me to my second area of interest: the facilities and resources available in one’s school(s). almost every buxiban i’ve ever worked in (i’ve been teaching in asia for seven years now) has had precisely nothing. desks, walls and a whiteboard with markers that may or may not contain ink. there may be a common area with a tv and vcd player, but i’m not typically encouraged to use them. computers in the classroom? forget about it. overhead projectors? forget about it. a decent set of reference material (atlases, thesaurus, encyclopedias)? forget about it. it’s gotten to the point that, when i see a two inch high stack of coloured paper, i get excited, and figure that i must have stumbled upon the only enlightened boss in a 10 km radius. in short, it’s a pathetic state of affairs. i’d love to know what facilities and resources my peers have available to them at work. don’t be afraid to make me jealous!
and here’s a little preemptive strike for all the morons who figure i should be able to do my job without all “that”: i am doing my job without all “that”.
Maybe you don’t want the answer to that question from me…
Every classroom is equipped with a CD/cassette player and a computer Windows 98 or higher with ADSL. Half the classrooms have their own printers and we have a CD library of over 75 different quality children’s music CDs, mostly imported from the US, in addition to the extensive CD-ROM collection with preschool and early elementary age-appropriate programs. Spacious classrooms, a huge indoor playroom, a big kitchen for cooking with the children, a teacher’s lounge and breakroom, a large lending library with walls full of imported children’s literature (one wall for preschoolers, one for the buxiban students) and shelves full of teaching resource materials. We get brand-new materials whenever we request them…markers, whiteboard markers, crayons, pencils, erasers, etc. don’t always have a long life around young children no matter how hard you try…
We are contracted to work only about 198 days a year with at least 4 weeks of paid vacation time (one week in December, two weeks for Chinese New Year, and one week in April) plus all the regular national holidays and regular bonuses and raises (based on seniority and performance, not class attendance). We have lots of freedom in setting our curriculum as long as it’s a well-rounded program and helps the children reach their age-appropriate benchmarks. We also do a school trip to various places in Taiwan (and once abroad) with all of the teachers (foreign and Taiwanese) and their families, generously covered by our school director. Our teacher-to-child ratios follow the same formula as practiced in North American preschools: 2x the age of the children (1:6 for 3-year-olds, 1:8 for 4-year-olds, etc) so you’ll never see a class of 25 3-year-olds with one foreign teacher.
Teachers who have worked in other schools in Taiwan before coming to mine for work are always talking about how incredible our school is resource-, staff-, and facilities-wise, even ones who have worked for bigger, well-organized chains like Hess.
The taxi driver in Taichung told me 50-60,000 for a few months. Dont know if he was an expert but he sure didnt mind complaining about the cost, I just told him the teachers were underpaid and that the laoban kept all the money for themselves. I can tell you what there monthly expenses are if you talk to me sweetly. 