The Ministry of Education yesterday announced that its plan to import foreign English-language teachers might be postponed as the government needs to figure out a way to better address the nation's status when signing bilateral-hiring contracts with other countries.
Officials said the plan to bring about 400 teachers from the US, Canada, the UK and Australia for the fall semester is likely to be delayed until next year.
Elementary Education Department Director Wu Tsai-shun (
"The Cabinet hopes the ministry will conduct the hiring procedures on a country-to-country model, instead of the ministerial level, as the government needs to spend a lot of money on this project," said Deputy Minister of Education Fan Sun-lu (范巽綠).
Fan said that since the government is ready to spend a fortune on hiring several hundred English-language teachers from abroad, it hopes the hiring procedures would be conducted in accordance with the country's dignity.
The hiring of the teachers is considered a government-purchase act. However, in order to avoid the time-consuming public-bidding process required by such purchases, the ministry decided to contact foreign academic institutions directly in order to hire teachers as soon as possible.
The director of the ministry's Bureau of International Cultural and Educational Relations, Li Chen-ching (李振清), said the government is working on signing reciprocal agreements with the four countries.
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