Please give me your advice on my kids' education in Taiwan

[aleegulotty]

good point, ironlady. we know of a french teacher who teaches at TES along with his wife but instead of taking advantage of the free tuition benefit, they've enrolled their eldest son in the local kindergarten and then the local elementary school. they've been here for at least 5 years but i suspect the son can also speak english and french pretty well (his Mandarin is impeccable!) however, at the end of the day, it's whatever best suits your family situation. take all of our advice with a grain of salt.

[Petrichor]

Aleegulotty, thanks. All very useful insider advice and information, especially which districts are best for which schools. When we were last in Taipei I really liked Beitou so it's good to know we could find somewhere nice to live that isn't too expensive. We're hoping one of my husband's former work colleagues may be able to help us out with negotiations for housing, though I think we'll have to accept that as noobs we will get ripped off a little. I like to view it as an incentive to learn the language and integrate.
Now the thread is thoroughly highjacked (sorry LAguy!) I'll pm you if I need to ask you more.

[hlhaley]

This has all been very helpful for my family. We are relocating to Taichung in February with 2 kids. One is in kindergarten in the USA and the other is 2.

A few questions: I see the list of bilingual schools in Taipei, does anyone have an experience with bilingual schools in Taichung? We do have an education allowance for our kids.

Are there any European schools in Taichung? I see TES in Taipei, but no branches in Taichung. I only ask as we might move to Europe after Taiwan and if we go the international school route, I would rather it be a european school versus an American one. Does anyone know of any kids who commute to TES via the speed train?

[touduke]

We are in Taichung too, our son is 2 years old. I have not checked out most of the things you ask about,
but we did join the parents group in Taichung.

http://guanximag.wordpress.com/community/

Taichung Parents
Is a group dedicated to providing expatriate and Taiwanese parents and families with opportunities to network and share information about living in Taichung with their children. They meet the last Sunday of each month in a local park.
taichungparents@googlegroups.com or on Facebook

[hlhaley]

Thank you! I will definitely look up this parent group when we go. This must be the google group that I have hear about here in Forumosa.

[LAguy]

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I don't mind my post being "hijacked" as you said. In fact, you all gave me lots of useful information not only about schools but also about other aspects of the kids encounter in Taiwan. Well, it is very sad that it's less info on schools in Kaohsiung. For now, I'm still collecting info on schools in Kaohsiung area. The more i dig, the more I feel difficult to move my kids to schools in Taiwan, regardless of international or local schools. I thank you all again and hope that when I have more info and come back here for more comment, you will continue to share with me your experience in this regard. Have a nice day everybody.

[nohobobo]

you're welcome. i got the listing off of the MOE website but unfortunately, if you can't read Chinese, you won't find it. the English site does not have the corresponding information either. all accredited institutions, public or private (I think with the exception of international schools like TAS, TES and the likes of them), are under the supervision of the MOE and are all listed on their website, by region and by type (elementary, middle school, etc.) i should probably ask them if they'd like me to translate all this pertinent info for them, for a fee, of course.

Hi Aleegulotty, can you post the link to the school lists on the MOE site (in Chinese)? My Chinese is so-so, not good enough to navigate around the MOE site but I should be able to read the school names and locations, etc. if I have the list in front of me....

We are down in Zhonghe/Banqiao area, hoping to look at some bilingual elementary schools a bit closer to home (if any!)

[Satellite TV]

I knew some south Americans who moved here and lived in Lotus Hill. The husband flew for China Airlines and his 2 children went to local schools. His eldest daughter was about 14 and son about 10 and they did quite well here in local schools but it was a lot of hard work for the kids.

However, children do learn fast.

[aleegulotty]

you're welcome. i got the listing off of the MOE website but unfortunately, if you can't read Chinese, you won't find it. the English site does not have the corresponding information either. all accredited institutions, public or private (I think with the exception of international schools like TAS, TES and the likes of them), are under the supervision of the MOE and are all listed on their website, by region and by type (elementary, middle school, etc.) i should probably ask them if they'd like me to translate all this pertinent info for them, for a fee, of course.

Hi Aleegulotty, can you post the link to the school lists on the MOE site (in Chinese)? My Chinese is so-so, not good enough to navigate around the MOE site but I should be able to read the school names and locations, etc. if I have the list in front of me....

We are down in Zhonghe/Banqiao area, hoping to look at some bilingual elementary schools a bit closer to home (if any!)

Here's the MOE website: http://www.tp.edu.tw/neighbor/

This is the main page from where you would enter your selection criteria. I was trying to do the search for you and just send you the results page link but the link doesn't work, unfortunately. So, you'd have to enter Taipei County as your area, select the cities (one at a time) and select Elementary school as your school type. It'll then display a list of all the public and private schools in the city of your choice. It'll have the name of the school, the website (most schools have a website) and other contact info.

Good luck!

[kaipakati]

I've had a different experience of the Taiwanese elementary education system than most - extremely positive.

My daughter had always had problems fitting into school, starting as a five year old back in her home country. I'd heard all the stories of the perils of the Taiwan education system and was very very worried about what I was bringing her to. She was nine years old at the time, and spoke no Mandarin. After some hunting around, I decided on a small "mountain" school. These schools are still part of the govt system. Because of difficulty getting a sufficient roll of children from their local area, they often expand in creative ways to fill a niche, and like to take students with "special needs", who are eligible to be counted as one and half, or two students, for funding purposes. Hence, schools can continue to operate with very small class sizes. Cool!

My daughter was a special needs kid, on account of her lack of Mandarin.. which meant that she got lots of free one on one hours with a lovely patient teacher who took her walking in the mountains when study all got too much for her. There were only 13 children in her grade! So she got to be on the swimming, baseball, dodgeball, athletics, football teams for three years in a row. At school shows or sports event, every child in the school had a turn and received support and applause. The kids LOVED their school. They were proud of it, happy to clean it and take care of it - (the notion of deliberately harming it in some way would be unthinkable) and they treated their teachers with respect and affection. We LOVED the concept of half days, and she thrived with the very sensible regime of ten minute breaks to run around madly between every fifty minute class. There were student centred creative and positive solutions put in place to help her when her behaviour was unacceptable. This environment completely turned around my daughters bad attitude towards school, and she learned so many positive things from it that will stay with her for life.
I will remain forever grateful to the Taiwanese Education system for this!


When we arrived, I couldn't speak any Mandarin either, and the school was incredibly considerate - always provided their English teacher as a translator for me in meetings.

This particular school had about 30% "mountain" kids, and the rest bused in from all parts of the city. Many of them were foreign born Taiwanese, who needed time and extra help to pick up their Mandarin language, or reading and writing skills. Many had parents who just didn't want their kids to have to start coping at such a young age with the pressures of homework and exams that the city school present. The school responded accordingly, and was in many ways fairly "alternative".

My daughter arrived there speaking no Mandarin. She was conversing freely in basic Mandarin within six months, and was fluent in a year. It took her longer with reading and writing of course - and this would have compounded into more of a problem for her if we'd continued in the local system.

I would highly recommend it as an option for kids up to the age of 12, especially if they're only going to be here a year or two. My feeling is (and I'm also a teacher) that what they learn about learning itself, and the cultural and language benefits, far outweigh the risks of "missing out" on something in their English language schooling, when they return to it. Particularly if they're already reading and writing in English, and that can be supported at home. If you can read and write, you can always catch up with the facts you need for exams.

If you're staying longer, it's more of a dilemma, because you have to think about what your children are going to do AFTER elementary school. Middle high is a whole other world.. of weekly tests, huge class sizes and only ONE way to succeed. If your kids aren't cut out for this, (mine definitely wasn't!), or if their Mandarin reading and writing skills aren't sufficient, as is almost guaranteed unless they start here at five or six, then you've got a problem. Get up to speed, Go home, or Hope for windfall to pay their International school fees.

Those interested, the school my daughter went to is Datun Guoxiao, ten minutes up the mountain from Beitou. There's a free school bus that picks up from the Beitou MRT. There are a couple of other similar schools that I know of, that also have foreign students, in the YMS area.

Cheers!