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Kang Chiao Bilingual School

Why choose Kang Chiao Bilingual School?

Join Kang Chiao Bilingual School as an English teacher in Taiwan. This is and excellent opportunity for teachers looking to live and teach in Taiwan. Our school was founded in 1988 and has been actively developing English education for elementary and junior high school students throughout Taiwan.

Reviews

Default avatar
Stephen
1/5
No, I don't recommend this program

An Unsafe and Unhealthy Environment With Constant Fraudulence and Negligence

The Kang Chiao Bilingual or Kangchiao International School has been featured in Taiwan’s media several times in the past three years. Once for illegally employing foreign teachers at an unlicensed kindergarten and apparently insisting they not be “dark skinned”, once when a former pupil threatened to commit a massacre at a Philadelphia school (and had made considerable preparations to do so), once when a foreign teacher tragically took their own life and once when linked to a tainted food product scandal.

There have been allegations of illegal drug use within the school community ignored by the school’s senior leadership, of cheating in examinations (some of it teacher assisted) and a police report was filed against former principal for verbally threatening a member of staff, trying to physically threaten said staff member via a proxy member of the school’s general affairs department and force that person to sign a resignation, thus incurring an illegal 30,000 NTD fine. CCTV footage of this incident exists and is apparently not the first time they engaged in such criminal activity.

The institute itself, I have had it on good advice, is still in a state of chaos, with pupils running amok and verbally abusing staff without fear of sanction, thanks to poor leadership and an extraordinarily high staff turnover. Theft of wages still occurs and lax educational standards without any safeguards or oversight persist.

This racism, abuse and fraud is openly condoned by The New Taipei City Department of Labour - who couldn’t be bothered to even investigate serious claims of employee abuse, The New Taipei City Ministry of Education - who couldn’t adequately inspect the school due to a pitiful and lazy culture of excuses, The New Taipei City Foreign Affairs Police - who could not correctly collect witness statements, The International Baccalaureate Organisation - who accredit the school despite repeated violations of their examination regulations and The Western Association of Schools and Colleges - who would in all likelihood give full accreditation to my neighbor’s basement meth lab if I gave them a fat enough fee.

In summary, your children are not safe there. Your teaching staff are not safe there. The school should be properly inspected and measures implemented.

Default avatar
Becky
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Great School to Grow

I really enjoyed my time teaching here (International School). The school has recently undergone a big change to salary and benefits. There were great opportunities to collaborate and good professional development opportunities. The faculty are well-qualified and experienced. I learned a lot from my colleagues. One drawback is it's on top of a mountain - bit of a commute, but there are school buses and public transport. Will definitely choose this school again if I ever return to Taiwan :)

What would you improve about this program?
Run on an international calendar (the school runs according to the Taiwanese calendar.)
Default avatar
American
2/5
No, I don't recommend this program

Safe if you want only 1 year, horrible for longer

I worked at the school for three years. The first year was great. The second year I really tried to make a positive change in the school by being active and starting programs. During this time, there were numerous times when I felt like the administrators were not being truthful. The third year, the true attitudes of the administrators became more apparent.

Like the other reviewer who had a negative experience, I am not here to place blame or be bitter about anything. I learned a lot from this school about how school for profit really works, and for that I am thankful.

The staff here are generally good, but most of the administrators, although some are foreigners, think too locally to be considered international school administrators. By that, I mean that the logic is a bit screwy and backwards. For example, the school isn't technically an international school, like many of the schools in Taiwan. As far as I know, only Taiwan American and Taiwan European schools are truly international, where all of their students hold foreign passports. They use the term "international" because it is more marketable and seems to lend credence to their really high tuition fees that keep increasing each year.

Next, the administrators don't care about the teachers, nor the students and parents -- in my opinion. They want to make as much money from the parents as possible. They want to give as little money as possible to teachers (by creating diminishing returns on raises/bonuses and by practically forcing teachers who stay longer, thus receive higher pay, to leave). Another situation that was frustrating was regarding teachers who pay to park in their garage by "requesting" them to stay 25 minutes, without pay, past their contractual obligations until they are allowed to leave campus (due to the crazy idea of driving on a street while students try to also go to a bus).

The time you spend being a teacher is supposed to naturally spill over into your off time, but this school takes up so much of your time at work, you practically do all prep at home, and a lot of your grading as well. This leaves you having little time to actually explore Taiwan in your down time. Additionally, they require a few times a year where you work on either a Saturday or Sunday, and if it is a professional development workshop -- which is mandatory.

In my opinion, the administration does not respect teachers. This goes along with not caring about them, but the constant threat of losing bonuses is held over your head. There are monthly assemblies, and if you don't attend, you lose part of your monthly AND quarterly bonus. There are poorly designed professional development workshops that occur on Thursdays. If you miss those, you are penalized. If you are sick, you have to show the school a doctor's note to receive a half-day pay. If you don't have a doctor's note, you receive no pay for the day you are sick. They will try to force you to use face recognition AND fingerprint identification clock-in systems, even though they give you an electronic badge that holds this function, too. Without respect, there's no trust, and then the school pretends to be shocked when you cannot return a high level of trust to them.

There is the problem with private schools who are in education for the business only. The parent company is a book publishing company, and guess whose books you have to buy to attend the school? Many of the admin and teachers here drive expensive cars. Now, good for them if they managed to secure some decent investments or have a spouse who earns a lot of money, but it is rather an uncomfortable feeling to see all these expensive cars coming into a private school.

If you are a teacher at heart and care about students, have principles that don't allow you to work for greedy corporations or untrustworthy people, I would say that working here for a year would be ok, but that's it.

Default avatar
Flannelled
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Loved my time at Kang Chiao

Having just read the review from Mr. Wibble (with whom I was acquainted with during his brief time at KCIS), I felt compelled to report of my experience at Kang Chiao. Please note that my review refers to the High School section, and not the elementary school.

I taught in the English department, and my students belonged to both the International Department (the stream that is heading to overseas schools) and the Secondary Department (whose students are destined for local universities). There was a noticeable difference in the abilities of the the two groups of students, as to be expected when one group has 100% of their classes in English, while the other group has only 10 periods of English instruction a week.

In my two years at Kang Chiao, I had initial discipline problems with a few students, which were soon sorted out with effective classroom management. I would suggest that this is something that the previous reviewer perhaps failed to implement in his classes. Having taught in the public school system, I found the behavior of the students to be vastly better than those I had encountered.

The fact that the previous reviewer slanders the true shining light of the school, Anne Ramalho, truly shows his character. Anne always made herself available and was a great source of inspiration to me. I appreciated her always giving-it-to-us-straight way of leadership, and I was happy to hear that she was promoted within the school.

Never once was I asked to falsify my grades, or to give grades higher than the students deserved. As a matter of fact, we had grading sessions during department meetings to discuss whether some teachers were grading their students too generously.

If it weren't for my family situation, I would have remained at Kang Chiao, and am happy with the direction that I see it developing into the future.

What would you improve about this program?
Having an earlier finish time would be more family-friendly for staff members.
Default avatar
Gmewmew
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

High School is the place to be

I worked at the High/Jr High for two years and absolutely loved it there. The admin are easy to get along, the kids are wonderful, great coworkers, and awesome facilities. I was teaching English, had two separate preps, and had plenty of enough time to get my planning and most grading done in my prep periods. My coworkers were awesome. I genuinely loved going to school nearly every day. A lot of hate here I think is about the elementary and you must know that the High School is a completely separate entity. I found as long as you go into things with a great attitude then you're rewarded with a great experience.

What would you improve about this program?
Only draw back is the location, it's about a 20 minute ride up the mountain. The school does provide buses but they're kinda pricey, there is also a lot of construction going on the road so it is a little dangerous.

The provided food is also really bad. Like, unbelievably bad. I find eating the food makes you sleepy and grumpy.I love Taiwanese food, but it would be disrespectful to Taiwan to call what they serve Taiwanese food.

Programs

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