Foreign graduate students in Taiwan get permission to work

According to the Taipei Times, labor officials in Taiwan are going to allow foreign graduate students to receive work permits as soon as they begin their studies after complaints from local universities that current rules were barring students from employment on important research projects.

The current rules state that foreign students are not allowed to work during their first year of study. However, under the new rules, graduate students can begin work immediately if the university attests that the work is related to their studies.

Chen Jui-chia, senior executive officer of the Council of Labor Affairs, said the new rule was a result of complaints to senior council officials that foreign students were being shut out from working on research projects that promote their academic advancement.

"Graduate students are often expected to help professors with their research in their first year," Chen said. "It is unfair to hold them back from academically meaningful projects," he added.

However, the old rules will remain in place for non-graduate foreign students, according to Chen. Non-graduate foreign students will not be allowed to work their first year, and will be required to fulfil one of three conditions to work in subsequent years.

"In order for foreign students to work in Taiwan, they will either have to show that they are suffering financial hardship, that their work is related to their area of academic expertise, or that their work is a part of their studies," Chen said. "We want to make sure that students who come to Taiwan come here primarily to study."

Chen stated the new rules would go into effect as soon as the council officially announced the change sometime in the middle of January 2008.