Row erupts over English teacher plan

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 (郭添財) told the Taipei Times yesterday that "the MOE has no grounds on which to oppose the hiring of English teachers from the Philippines and India as long as their qualifications are subject to the regulations of the Employment Services Act."

"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 (吳財順) said that "the MOE would only consider teachers whose native language is English to teach in elementary schools."

"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 (李振清), director of the MOE's Bureau of International Cultural & Education Relations, however, said "the decision has not yet been finalized. It is still in the planning process."

"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."