According to data published by the Chinese Foreign Experts Bureau, there are only about 100 teaching institutions qualified to provide foreign expert certificates and thereby make the hiring of foreign teachers legitimate. Although, there is a limit to how many of the aforementioned certificates each school may register in a calendar year.

Further data shows that of the approximately 1.3 million foreign residents in Shenzhen, between 7 and 8,000 of them operate as English teachers. Which means that more than half the foreigners teaching English in the city are unregistered and therefore illegal.

In the past the system allowed for teachers to slip through the cracks and work, undocumented without a much trouble. Now though, as the rules are standardized and enforced, finding an authorized teaching job is becoming increasingly difficult.

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Keywords: More than half of Shenzhen teachers are working illegally