Thanks for all the suggestions. Neither I, nor the school has as of yet been issued with anything written saying that the work permit has been cancelled but I plan to go to the immigration office first thing monday and see if I can get a 30 day extension on my arc before it has been cancelled. Then I will try to get the ruling turned around. I did not go to the branch in Canada, I merely know that there is one. It is a campus, and maybe I can get some verification of its credibility with the canadian government. I’m glad to hear any other suggestions ones might have.
Tell them they read it wrong and it is University of New Mexico. :discodance:
[quote=“danjordan”]I just got a phone call from the head of my school. I have been working at one branch of their school for 4 years straight until last month when the branch closed down. At that point, we applied for a work permit for another branch in Taipei county and got it with no troubles, in fact i just got my adjusted ARC card back two days ago from the gov. My new branch doesn’t quite have enough hours so the school decides to apply for a secondary work permit for a branch in Taipei so I can take some hours there as well. He gets a call today saying that my degree (from Mexico city, UNAM) is not valid. That is fine but the woman says that my other work permit should not have gone through and that she is going to have that cancelled as well and fine the school 30000nt if I show up at the school again.
Can she cancel my work permit after they were the ones who let it through, twice? Do I have to be notified beforehand? My boss says he just tried to play dumb but that the lady seemed very agitated and not willing to talk about it. I understand that Taiwan has standards for degrees and the second largest university in the world is not on their list because it is not in an English speaking country, but I have been here for years and have a legit work permit, and I am only 8 months away from aprc application. HELP!! What can I do? If she cancels it without me knowing, then 4 years are down the drain.
My boss is a good guy and has always done right by me, but he says he doesn’t know what to do, and is asking me to reach out for answers.[/quote]
If I may rant a bit, if it’s OK with you guys:
Whiskey Tango Hotel!!! I’ve never read anything so warped in my life -on their side, pal. I feel for you.
Gee, I though they were only asking for the right passports. How come my South African friend can teach with a degree in Chemistry, then, for Pete’s sake? What if you have a degree in MATESOL, or maybe Translation/Interpretation -to make it more logical to study abroad. What was your minor again?
It’s freakin’ UNAM for God’s sake’s, a lot better than any Colege of Whatchamachalit in God Forsaken Hellhole, Whatever, The country without a name.
And yes, I know US nationals teaching Spanish. I was passed over for a job for one, as he could then teach both English and Spanish.
:fume: :fume: :fume: :raspberry:
OK, rant over.
I know several people who were born in Spanish speaking countries and teach here after getting US/Canadian/any other English speaking place passport.
It is their administrative mistake. I bet they swear you are someone like this. Breathe deep, negotiate, go in there with a sh**-eating grin and don’t lose your cool. Wear them out. As long as you and your boss are on the same page, it’s cool.
Keep us posted. We’ll be rooting for you.
Good luck to you, but you may be SOL. You have some kind of a correspondence degree. They are usually not accepted here. See if the Canadian trade office can be of any help.
I understood the OP to mean that he studied in Mexico, but maybe I’m wrong. If he actually went to Mexico to study, then it’s just a misunderstanding, surely, and he should be able to work this out. It would be awful to be told to leave after four years because someone just decided that your degree is from the wrong school, or obtained in the wrong way.
According to the English version of the Law it is your passport which establishes the language you can teach.
http://laws.cla.gov.tw/Eng/FLAW/FLAWDOC01.asp?lsid=FL028069&lno=40
It seems you need to track down the list of recognised Unis.
It seems from the Min. Of Ed. site (http://english.moe.gov.tw/content.asp?cuItem=11650&mp=2)that this falls under the :
Regulations Regarding the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Academic Credentials by Institutions of Higher Education announced by the Ministry, foreign academic credentials are recognized only if they meet the following criteria:
(1) The school from which said credentials were obtained is on the list of schools recognized by the Ministry or is recognized by the supervisory authority of the local government or by a professional certification institution.
(2) The length of study and courses taken must be comparable to those of the Taiwanese schools of the same level and type. Those awarded a bachelor’s degree must have studied in a local school for a total of at least 32 months, with those awarded a master’s degree having studied there for at least 8 months and those awarded a doctorate at least 16 months.
I’m not sure, but if it isn’t on the list maybe you could follow the steps in the regulations to get your degree recognised. Here’s the link:
english.moe.gov.tw/content.asp?CuItem=7364&mp=1
Can’t find the list though. Although it must be available from the Ministry of Education, for Taiwanese students planning to study abroad.
Perhaps you could tell the NIA that you won’t be going in to work, but will be working towards getting your degree recognised instead, just like a Taiwanese student might upon return.
Best of luck with this, only 8 months off your APRC too!!!
Be aware that any time spent studying disqualifies you for your APRC effectively, because initially you have to go on a visitor visa, even if the rest of the time you were here working. Their interpretation is flawed, but it is how it goes at present. So try to avoid that.
Do you have the right amount of working experience to be able to skip the degree requirement for another type of job (I can’t remember what it is now, used to be 8 years, now it’s dropped down, perhaps someone else knows?).
If so get looking fast, you need to keep your visa intact if you want to get your APRC easily.
Before you do anything else, including going to the NIA, I’d get in contact with the Min of Ed and check that list. The CLA woman might be mistaken.
Good luck,
Cheers
Kitkat
The OP’s problem lies in either section (1) or (2) of the regs reproduced in kitkat’s post. The uni is either not on an accepted list and/or the courses were done by correspondence. If the problem is only section (1), OP may have some recourse if he can get the credential assessed. I remember a credential evalutation service through Open university in my home town. I think getting the credential verified by them might help OP’s situation. Perhaps the Canadian trade office could help as well. Not sure if anything can be done about correspondence degrees. It’s just their rule, likely in place to protect the local universities.
Hmmm, I wonder where this list is. I am now all of a sudden worried that the university I went to is not on the list.
Danjordan, If you manage to get hold of the actual list maybe you could post the link here? It’d be handy for people to be able to reference it.
Would that be accepted list of unis for teaching or just recognized as valid? I know a bunch of like 30 Mexican students, dispersed for under and graduate studies in local Taiwanese universities. I am sure some of them must have been to UNAM. Can we argue then that if you can study here you could theoretically speaking work, too? We can take out the details as whether a degree from, a Spanish speaking university is valid for teaching English, but sincerely, so would one in Chemistry, Philospphy and otehr stuff I’ve seen people use here.
And of course, as previously stated, if it is an Internet correspondence cereal box kind of degree he’s got, then UNAM or no UNAM he ain’t going nowhere. That won’t fly an inch. Unacceptable. Totally.
Would that be accepted list of unis for teaching or just recognized as valid? I know a bunch of like 30 Mexican students, dispersed for under and graduate studies in local Taiwanese universities. I am sure some of them must have been to UNAM. Can we argue then that if you can study here you could theoretically speaking work, too? We can take out the details as whether a degree from, a Spanish speaking university is valid for teaching English, but sincerely, so would one in Chemistry, Philospphy and otehr stuff I’ve seen people use here.
And of course, as previously stated, if it is an Internet correspondence cereal box kind of degree he’s got, then UNAM or no UNAM he ain’t going nowhere. That won’t fly an inch. Unacceptable. Totally.[/quote]
I am not suggesting that Mexican people with degrees from the university in question would or wouldn’t be able to study at a university anywhere in the world. However, from the OP’s posts it seems that UNAM has some kind of a satellite school in Canada, and he had done a distance degree administered by them and that that particular branch may or may not be accredited in Canada/recognized by authorities in Taiwan for the purposes of obtaining a work permit. I am also not suggesting that correspondence=cereal box degree. That isn’t always the case. I’ve known people who have done legit degrees that way (but you won’t get a lecturer’s license here with such a degree). Perhaps OP could clarify in this thread whether or not he attended classes in Mexico. If he did, he may have a case for overturning the cancelled work permit. If he did not, he is SOL as correspondence degrees (good or not) are not accepted according to the regs here.
Yep, indeed we need more clarifycation. I understood he attended classes, as he mentioned costs, and distance courses would seem to be an instance “no way, Jose” for a work visa here. I mean, teh issue was grey enough to dup NIA and CLA twice.
quote The school from which said credentials were obtained is on the list of schools recognized by the Ministry or is recognized by the supervisory authority of the local government or by a professional certification institution.[/quote] (my emphasis)
Here [in Chinese are the MOE lists of schools for the US, Canada, and several other Latin American countries. It appears that there is no list for Mexico–possibly because Taiwan and Mexico have long had bad relations. Perhaps the Mexican trade office knows something about an MOE list of recognized Mexican institutions?
But if you can show that UNAM is accredited by the Mexican authorities or recognized accreditation bodies, you may have a case. But not if you did a correspondence course. I would suggest that you start by feeding the CLA information in Chinese about UNAM’s rankings internationally and then start figuring out how the MOE recognizes Mexican universities.
I found this article (again in Chinese) on Mexican higher education by Chen Xiao-que, who received a PhD from UNAM. That would suggest that Chen somehow had his/her degree recognized since Chen teaches at Tamkang U.
Earlier in this thread, someone suggested that you enroll in Chinese classes to preserve your eligibility for permanent residence. I don’t think that will work. The Immigration Act was recently amended to exclude time spent studying in Taiwan:
Also, if you have a valid ARC in hand, I would not go to the immigration authorities asking for an extension to something that has not yet been canceled. This will just alert them to a problem. You need to get the CLA to delay canceling your work permits by feeding them more information.
Good luck.
Ok…so let me see if I got this straight.
- The OP is a Canadian. Born and bred.
- The OP has a Canadian passport.
- The OP has a 4 year college degree from UNAM (Mexico)
- The NIA and CLA have cleared this degree twice for authorization to work, but just recently caught their “mistake” and are now rejecting it.
What we are trying to determine is:
- Does Taiwan accept degrees from UNAM?
- Did the OP live in Mexico and attend UNAM for 4 years in person?
- Did the OP stay in Canada and attend the UNAM branch campus in person?
- Did the OP stay in Canada and partake in an online/distance learning type degree program through UNAM? Similar to the University of Phoenix type online degree programs.
What if:
The OP is Canadian and has a Canadian passport, but went to live in Mexico and attend college at UNAM for 4 years in person. So, the OP is a Canadian and has a Canadian passport, but a Mexican university degree. How would that work out based on the law here?
Surfer, we can rule out #3 from " we are trying to determine." OP has indicated that he did not attend classes on the Canadian campus. So we are left with:
Did the OP attend college at the UNAM campus in Mexico and, if he did, is Taiwan not accepting these degrees (it seems unlikely as Taiwan accepts these credentials for entrance to their own programs and has local university faculty who also possess their degrees)?
Did OP do the degree by distance/online?
Is UNAM Canada division on the list of accepted universities?
I don’t think it is that Taiwan is not accepting those degrees. I believe that they want a four year degree from a university in which the medium of education is English. Or was the posters UNAM study entirely in English? If degrees completely done in another language are accepted then why even require a university degree? Just let high school graduates teach English in Taiwan.