TAIPEI (Taiwan News) -- Almost a month after an amendment to the Supplementary Education Act (補習進修教育法) was ratified requiring foreigners applying to cram schools, also known as "buxiban" (補習班), to obtain a criminal record check, many foreign teachers are in limbo as a final decision on temporary exemptions to the background check have yet to be finalized by the relevant ministries.

During a press conference yesterday, Kuomintang (KMT) Legislator Apollo Chen (陳學聖) said though he supports the new background check (行為良好證明) for foreigners applying to work at cram schools, the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Labor (MOL) should expedite their implementation of the rules that include a provision for foreigners who come from countries such as the U.S. where criminal background checks can take as long as six months.

Chen said the busy summer study season has begun at cram schools and because the relevant regulations have not been fully finalized, the work visa applications of 74 prospective teachers have been left in limbo at the MOL. He urged the two ministries to stop passing the buck back and forth and go ahead and issue a full explanation of the law, so as to avoid a foreign language teacher shortage.

Department of Lifelong Education Deputy Director Yen Pao-yueh (顏寶月) said that the MOE is actively working with the MOL to issue an explanation.

However, Ministry of Labor specialist Su Yu-kuo (蘇裕國) said the her department has already completed its coordination with the MOE on the matter, and it is now up to them to issue an explanation. Su says once the MOE issues the explanation, her department will be able to issue the work permits.

Chen asked Yen when the MOE and the MOL could agree on a deadline to finalize the explanation, to which Yen replied "he is hoping to complete the process as soon as possible before the end of July." In response, Chen said the two departments should come to a final decision within one week.

National Association of Continuing Education of Taiwan, ROC director-general Chiu Chang-chi (邱昌其) recommended that prospective teachers be allowed to first provide a signed affidavit (切結書) stating that they do not have a criminal record in their home countries to give them a grace period to apply for an official criminal record check from their passport issuing countries. He suggested that they be given a six month grace period to apply for the criminal background documents, but if they do not provide such documentation within that period they should be unconditionally dismissed from their position.

The recent amendments to the laws regulating cram schools and their teachers were precipitated by the widely publicized suicide of the 26-year-old Taiwanese writer Lin Yi-han (林奕含), who in April of this year committed suicide, a decade after allegedly being sexually assaulted by her Taiwanese cram school teacher. Two months prior to taking her own life, Lin had just published a novel about young girl being raped by her cram school teacher.

According to MOE data, there are about 18,000 cram schools and 4,800 foreign teachers at such institutions Taiwan.