Taiwan Toughens Background Check Requirements

On July 27, Huang Yueh-li, director of the Ministry of Education’s Department of Lifelong Education, announced a number of measures after the Supplementary Education Act was amended.

 

These include requiring all cram school teachers and staff to submit a police criminal record certificate, known in Taiwan as a liangmin certificate, to protect cram school students. Employees from overseas also need to provide documents attesting to the fact that they have no criminal record in their country of origin.

 

Many cram school operators have expressed concerns that asking teachers from overseas already in Taiwan to then return to their countries of origin in order to apply for the police criminal record certificate would be expensive for the teachers. According to Huang, however, following discussions with the agencies concerned, it was decided that, as the law was non-retroactive, and because the amendments state that foreign teachers should submit a police criminal record certificate when they initially apply for approval for employment, teachers employed prior to the amendments do not need to return to their country of origin to process the certificate.