Wednesday, October 19, 2005

CANADIAN ENGLISH TEACHERS CAUGHT IN KOREAN CRACKDOWN---LESSONS FOR TAIWAN???

Nearly 50 English teachers from Canada have been detained, deported or investigated on allegations of visa fraud in South Korea, a country seeking to purge itself of young Westerners increasingly regarded as unqualified, unruly and unwelcome.
Like many Canadians interviewed, he(one unnamed english teacher) said that Koreans have an innate xenophobia that has hardened of late. "There has been a definite change in the way we're being perceived in the last nine or 10 months," he said. "Before, it was, 'Please speak me English.' Now, it's 'Get out of my country, white devils.' "

Korea has taken a strong stand against English teachers with dubious credentials lately . Taiwan however has always taken a liberal attitude towards the English Teaching trade and Taiwan has always had high levels of unqualified teachers. Taiwan does not actively seek out teachers with fake credentials or those teaching outside of their assigened schools as Korea does. I don't think Taiwan even has a proven method of certifying teacher credentials. Just last year there was a story of a South African who was deported, after his taiwanese GF reported his fake credentials, but then he returned and cleared his name in a Taiwanese court. No one had chosen to really scrutinize his documents that he provided. If they had they would have found that the uni he had studied at provided a BA, Masters and Ph.d online for 999$USD.
Perhaps the Taiwanese could take note of the Korean crackdown and at least make an attempt to better enforce the laws here.

Globe and Mail story here
CBC story about one teacher caught here
Another CBC story about a Canadian girl who plays dumb about everything here

2 Comments:

Blogger fatrobot said...

i am a certified scientician with a mba in cryptozoology

October 20, 2005 3:53 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those working abroad need to be aware of the rule of law in the countries they inhabit. To do otherwise should be to expect the unexpected.

November 08, 2005 2:07 PM  

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