The Ministry of Education recently said it was against local employment agencies recruiting English teachers from the Philippines and India as they are not native English speakers.
However, under the Employment Services Act, the nationalities of English teachers are not profiled by law in Taiwan. Can the MOE halt the import of Filipinos and Indians to teach English in Taiwan?
Lawmaker Kuo Tien-tsai (
"Why can't employment agencies recruit foreign teachers who are less costly, as long as they are legal and can provide a similar quality of teaching service as their Western counterparts?" Kuo said.
"As long as teachers from the Philippines and India are legally permitted by law to be able to work in Taiwan, the MOE has no reason to block them from teaching," the lawmaker said.
Local Chinese-language newspapers reported last Monday that local employment agencies plan to bring in some 20 teachers from the Philippines and India after the Lunar New Year to teach in kindergartens and cram schools because these teachers will work for about half the salary of their Western counterparts.
However, the MOE said it objects to recruiting from countries where English is not the native language and residents have "non native" accents.
Employment agencies said that the teachers they want to recruit all have university degrees and teaching certificates and expect monthly salaries of between US$1,000 and US$1,200.
One of the agencies said that as the Philippines and India are also English-speaking countries, the ministry should have no problem with finding quality staff there.
Their European and American counterparts command monthly salaries of between US$2,000 and US$3,000.
However, director of MOE's Department of Elementary Education Wu Tsai-shung (
"Teachers from the Philippines and India are not native English speakers and their mother tongues are other languages. The MOE so far only considers hiring teachers from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia," Wu said.
Li Chen-ching (
"It's not up to the MOE to decide whether private cram schools can recruit teachers from these two countries, as these teachers are subject to the Supplementary Education Law," Li said.
"But if these teachers want to teach in the formal education system such as in public primary schools and junior high schools, the MOE has the power to set standards for their qualifications as they have to get a formal teacher's certificate issued by the ministry," Li added.
Teachers who wish to teach in public elementary and junior high schools are instead subject to the Employment Service Law.
Li also echoed Wu's view that the ministry prefers teachers from English-speaking Western countries, saying "if we pay the English teachers using taxpayers' money, we certainly would like to recruit the best qualified teachers."
"Teaching English is not just about the language. It is also about language as a culture and language as a society. These factors should also be taken into consideration," Lee said.
Geoff Evans, director for the British Council Taipei -- a major English teacher-training provider -- told the Taipei Times, "[The question] should be on the basis of the quality of the teacher. It must depend on the individuals as to whether their English is appropriate."
Speaking of the different accents of English teachers, such as the British or American accenst, Evans said, "An accent is something that all foreigners have to be able to cope with [in communication]."
"It depends on what the objective of the government's recruitment is and the exposure of what particularly kind of accent they are seeking," Evans said.
However, Evans said that the frenzy of introducing foreign English teachers might only benefit Taiwanese children in the short term.
Over the long term, Taiwanese teachers themselves will play a key role to the substantial development of Taiwan's English learning, he said.
"I definitely believe that Taiwanese teachers will make a difference in the long run, because those teachers coming from English-speaking countries will only be here for a very short time," Evans said.
"Foreign teachers can make a difference with the students they teach now, but what about the next generation of students?
"You [Taiwan] actually have to build up your own resources," he said.
"Any parent would be interested in this issue for the benefit of their own children for the time being, but in the long term, it's a question of what would be good for the education system of Taiwan," Evans said.
SCENARIOS: A potential conflict with Beijing would not be similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and China would target energy and food supplies, a researcher said China is likely to continue using economic and cyberoperations against Taiwan to force it to capitulate without resorting to a military attack, Fox News reported yesterday, citing the outcome of a tabletop exercise. Washington-based think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) earlier this month held a tabletop exercise in Taipei focusing on Beijing’s use of economic and cybercoercion against Taiwan. The FDD mentioned an “anaconda strategy,” in which Beijing would likely use cyberwarfare and disinformation campaigns followed by a blockade or other measures to strangulate Taiwan, rather than attempting an invasion, the report said. A large-scale cyberattack would be
HSINCHU CASES: Five people among 35 who were reported being sick were still in hospital after eating at a vendor in a market in Jhubei, the local health agency said Thirty-five people have sought medical treatment for acute symptoms after allegedly eating banh mi (Vietnamese sandwiches) from a vendor in Jhubei City (竹北), the Hsinchu County Public Health Bureau said yesterday. The bureau said that since Saturday, it has received several reports of suspected food poisoning from hospitals. The vendor has been ordered to temporarily suspend its business, it said, adding that tests were being conducted to determine whether the people had food poisoning, with results expected in about two weeks. A preliminary investigation showed that the people who sought treatment had recently eaten banh mi at a vendor at a retail market
GOOD MODEL: Speaking at his book launch, Law said that Taiwan is the most democratic Chinese-speaking country, which is why Hong Kongers relocated here China has suffocated Hong Kong’s civil society and its next target could be Taiwan, Nathan Law (羅冠聰), cofounder of the disbanded pro-democracy Hong Kong political party Demosisto, said in Taipei yesterday. Law made the remarks at a launch in Taipei for his book When the Wind Blows — the Struggles for Freedom of Hong Kong (時代推著我們前行:羅冠聰的香港備忘錄). Law has been living in the UK since he fled Hong Kong in 2020, and the book is about his fighting for the cause of freedom in the area. He was granted political asylum in 2021. “Fleeing is a long and distressing process, but it also
IMITATING OTHERS? Tsai Ing-wen’s office said the former president rents a commercial unit for her personal office and had never used election funds to purchase real estate Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday confirmed that he used about NT$43 million (US$1.35 million) from his presidential election subsidy to purchase an office unit near the Legislative Yuan in May. Ko made the remarks after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) earlier in the day told a news conference that she received a tip-off that the TPP chairman had purchased a 48.76 ping (161.2m2) office unit at Jinan Building (濟南大樓), a commercial building in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正). Lin said that Ko purchased the unit on May 10, paying about NT$43 million in cash,