Lotta, you’ll have to be a licensed teacher in your home country to work for the MOE.
FYI, in trying to go around Dewey today, I did some research and called the MOE in Kaohsiung directly–they gave me Dewey’s contact information.
Oh God. Why?!
Was that for the Foreign English Teachers in Taiwan programme?
Yes.
housecat: That’s really weird because the people I know in this programme were either recruited centrally via Footprints for the MOE or they applied directly to the local county government. Of course, it doesn’t help that the contact info on the website is a broken link and the other information is a few years out of date…
I haven’t read the whole thread, so this might be the wrong answer. There are many jobs teaching in public schools. Depending on who is funding the projects effects all kinds of things like pay, security, etc. Some jobs come through the Executive Yuan, Ministry of Education. For these you need some sort of teaching credential. Other jobs are funded through county boards of education or other sources. These kinds of jobs are recruited locally, even through Taiwan-based agents. In such jobs, you would only ‘working for the MOE’ in a metaphorical sense, since all the money would be coming from something other than the MOE.
I have seen jobs in Taipei public schools recruited illegally through unlicensed agents. At another time, Tainan County had jobs recruited through a Kaohsiung travel agent that offered 10 month contracts you could not extend even if you wanted. This would have been because they were probably arranging legal work permits then firing you to save on the 12 months of pay they were legally obligated to provide - or something like that.
We’re mostly way off-topic on this thread, but it’s very interesting.
HC, what address and employer is given on your work permit/ARC?
Have people considered looking on the outskirts of whatever town they are in? The other day I was riding my scooter through tTaichung and wondering where all the buxibans are. Are they all closing down? I found a job on the outskirts of town teaching older students.
[quote=“Loretta”]We’re mostly way off-topic on this thread, but it’s very interesting.
HC, what address and employer is given on your work permit/ARC?[/quote]
My elementary school.
You can’t swing a (house) cat near my school without scratching up at least a dozen buxibans! This place is filthy with 'em. Even one of the appartments I looked at when I first moved here–right outside the school gates–has become a new buxiban.
HC, I do believe though that most of those cram schools are the kind that don’t hire foreigners, at least from what I see around here. There are plenty of cram schools here offering English classes, but none of them appear to employ foreign “teachers”.
Are you still lost in Kaohsiung, Creztor? I’m in Zhanghua.
Housecat, indeed I am. Never been to Zhanghua but I am guessing there are more cram schools there than down here.
[quote=“housecat”][quote=“Loretta”]We’re mostly way off-topic on this thread, but it’s very interesting.
HC, what address and employer is given on your work permit/ARC?[/quote]
My elementary school.
You can’t swing a (house) cat near my school without scratching up at least a dozen buxibans! This place is filthy with 'em. Even one of the appartments I looked at when I first moved here–right outside the school gates–has become a new buxiban.[/quote]
I went out job fishing in a place in town, but not my neighborhood. Since it was near a school, it was full of buxibans. I came out with three offers. I was surprised. I wasn’t even expecting to be interviewed just yet. Maybe the birthrate hasn’t dropped off in that neighborhood.
It’s not the birthrate in this area. This area is where a lot of schools are located. I guess the area required that many at one time, but now the three elementary school in five blocks or so are full of kids who live, for the most part, much farther out. Our school is very competitive and attracts a lot of kids, too, or so I’ve been assured.
Our school also has the only gymnastics program in central Taiwan, but only a tiny handful of students use it. I think most of them are in the program by direct invitation from the coach. (I’d think that would mean that there were droves of little monkies who were very eager to swing and flip around, but I guess not.)
But yes, because of all the elementary schools (and some Jr. highs), there are squintillions of buxibans here. There are foreigners who have to come and collect the kids after school and walk them to class. I almost never see one of these foreigners for longer than a month. I don’t know if they quit, or if the foreigners get rotated for pick up duty to keep the faces fresh.
Back to the original question. I think the job market in Kaohsiung (or perception) is shrinking partly because Kaohsiung has become a very desirable place for expats (more supply). And tbh I’ve been subbing/interviewing over the last several months and I would have never have found these buxibans/anchinbans if I wasn’t called and given directions (and sometimes it was still difficult to find them). A lot of them are on side streets and as single branch locations they aren’t easy to know about. I had driven past the school 10-15 times that I signed with recently and I didn’t know it was an English school.
The KaohsiungLiving group jobs available postings also seems to have picked up recently.
I just posted an ad for a fulltime job in the Taiwanted jobs available section. I also posted it on Kaohsiung living but only got one response. I guess being in Gangshan/Qiaotou puts farther away from the city than most foreigners are willing to travel?
Well, I don’t know, Jackalope, I feel like an idiot at the moment because I can’t find your ad here anywhere! Short of searching for all your posts (which I haven’t done yet), I can’t find a classifed section, and Taiwanted is still under construction. I just feel stupid.
Anyway, I’ll check Kaohsiung living. I didn’t see any ads in my once-a-day that mentioned Ganshang. I have friends in Kaohsiung who are also looking for work.
I think that it’s this one.
Yes, that’s the one. Thanks.
Gangshan is probably a little too far for Kaohsiung’ers to travel for work although the MRT/folding bike option isn’t bad. The other problem is that currently the job market has picked up due everyone hiring for August. So most are probably applying for the jobs in Kaohsiung currently.
In addition most employers post multiple times (like 3-4 times in 2 weeks) on KaohsiungLiving because it’s a horribly unreadable format. And taiwanted doesn’t get a lot of traffic from Kaohsiung’ers since 90+% of it is Taipei related.
[quote=“tomthorne”]http://www.forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?f=142&t=100272
I think that it’s this one.[/quote]
Thanks! I would guess that another problem is the split location. But maybe not if people in K-Town are used to finding hours where ever they can. It’s just not an easy market.