Filipinos Teaching English in Taiwan
The Philippine Ministry of Labour and Employment has suggested that Filipinos be permitted to teach English in Taiwan.Filipinos to Teach English in Taiwan
The Taiwan Ministry of Education (MOE) has indicated that it will soon start a recruiting drive for qualified English instructors. Admittedly, there is a shortage of qualified and experienced English teachers in Taiwan (and in other countries within the region) and this move would make perfect sense.
However, the MOE has stated that it will only pay Filipino instructors $25,000 NT, almost half of what teachers from Canada, Australia, U.S. and U.K. make under the same program.
My position on this is that qualified Filipino English instructors should receive the same pay and benefits as their colleagues from Canada, Australia, U.S. and the U.K. if they are to be contracted for the same amount of hours and duties as the native speaking instructors.
Furthermore, I agree that there should be more opportunities for qualified Filipino and Indian instructors who have native-like proficiency in English.
Indeed, it seems wrong to allow access to English teaching positions in Taiwan purely on the basis of where individual applicants were born or the kind of passport they hold.
For instance, there are French Canadians in Taiwan teaching English, some at the university level, in fact, who are not native English speakers. However, they hold Canadian passports, thus, making them eligible to teach English in Taiwan.
The current MOE policies are based on race and they must be ammended so as not to exclude other English speaking applicants from non-English-speaking countries.
2 comments:
I've argued for years in my various AFL programs that we need teachers from India, the Middle East, and elsewhere, because most of my kids will go out into the world and interact with people with those accents, not N. American ones.
Michael
I totally agree. Indeed India is the world biggest english speaking country, and given that it is nominally part of 'asia' it strikes me as odd that Indian with good educational qualifications are not more actively recruited to teach in east asian and south east asian schools.
Then again, it doesn't suprise me.
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