Parents Need Not Apply

Parents Need Not Apply
Apr 25, 2016 By Sinobear , eChinacities.com

What has China got against parents?

Been doing some job and soul-searching lately, and there’s something I’ve noticed: as a parent of twins, most schools offering positions offer either no discount or only a 50% discount on tuition.

This gets me to thinking…shouldn’t parents be more responsible and less likely to pull a runner? Shouldn’t a parent at the very same school likely to be more dependable and reliable?

"It's a Claw-Black"
So why such a crappy deal when it comes to signing with schools?

Married couples with children obviously have to make more careful and deliberate choices. We want our children to go to a ‘good school’ and the incumbent teaching parent has to do a lot of soul-searching to ensure that the school he/she works for and the very same school is a ‘good fit’ for his her child.

So why 50%? (and some schools offer nothing or less than 50% or a 60% discount). It’s a claw-back, simple and straight-forward.

Now, I have an offer of about 300,000 Yuan per year plus benefits, minus taxes. The school is offering 50% of tuition for one child and 60% off for the second. The tuition is 78,000 Yuan PER SEMESTER!

So, I pay 78,000 Yuan per year for one child and 62,400 Yuan for the other.140,400 Yuan for both per year. Go back to the salary offer: 300,000 – 5%= 28,5000 – 140,400 = 144,600 or 12,000 Yuan per month. Of course, there’s food, activities, utilities, rent, insurance, and daily expenses. This is far from the 25, 500 Yuan per month that the position offers.

"What are Schools Thinking?"
Now, I’m not detracting from the single/childless teachers who garner such a salary, hell, I had that back in 1998 as a single guy working in Beijing. My point being: why in the heck do schools think that this is a good thing? Clawing-back almost half of a salary just because one has children?

You could reasonably state, “Hey, Sinobear, the school could be making the full tuition from the two places that your children take up.”  That is true, except that these schools always have a maximum class-load and not a definitive one.

If I was a teacher at a public school in the west, my children attend school for free. At a private school (K-12) my children attend for free. Even without the chance to attend a private school, at least they’d still go to a local school for free.

"Yesteryear and Today"
And this also got me to thinking about the discrepancy between salaries and benefits of yesteryear and today: Back in ’98, a subject teacher could expect to earn 18,000 plus monthly. An English teacher, 14,000. Everything was included (for a legitimate school hiring a foreigner from abroad). Kindergarten teachers were some of the most highly paid: usually starting at 20,000 per month. Today, there are positions advertised in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai offering less!

The requirements have increased, not a bad thing, except that you are expected to bear the cost – criminal records check, degree validation , TEFL certificate…and so on and so forth.

The start-up costs have also increased – from one month deposit for an apartment to two, three or even a full year’s deposit.

Airfares used to be fully covered, you were reimbursed for whatever it cost you from going A-B. Now, there’s caps. I’ve seen numbers as low as 4,000 Yuan. When I was working for a money-trap of a company in Beijing, I’d fly First Class (from the Chinese city where I was located) and have the company reimburse me for that. Today, enjoy your three-day, 4-stop-over flights because you have to work within these confines.

Emergency accident insurance is supposed to be covered, by Chinese law, for employees, yet schools are offering only on-site coverage and contracting terms such as dismissal after only three days medical leave.

Accommodations are supposed to be at a “three-star hotel” standard, yet many FTs are living in squalid hovels, even shared accommodations, which contravenes Chinese labor law.

Salaries, which should reflect not only the skill-level (degree and experience) of the teacher, but also the ‘hardship’ level of the placement (as of 2014 – the last time I checked, Guangzhou was still considered a hardship posting by the Fortune 500 Index).

Look at the smaller city postings – “Come stay in beautiful BF Nowhere! 80000 years of history and culture! You’ll earn 89854654 times the average salary of the local sewer-cleaner!” And people not only fall for that, but also defend it!

And now, 18 years later and things have gone from bad to worse. Profits (yes, just like the West) have doubled, tripled and even allowed companies specializing in English testing (but not English learning) such as New Oriental to go public. FT salaries have remained stagnant and even declined (and, yes, you can blame supply and demand for this).

"We get...?"
Where does all this bring us? Back to the original point: schools want dedicated professional teachers. Most of us who want a ‘real’ life in China require real salaries and real benefits that reflect our dedication. A Chinese local teacher gets either a free apartment or extremely reduced rates on the purchase price of one. We get....? A Chinese local teacher gets all kinds of discounts, bonuses (including the ability to demand ‘Gray’ money from students) and subsidies whereas. We get...?

And when schools and institutions are looking to hire a dedicated, mature, reliable, professional teacher, we are expected to subsidize the very school we are profiting because we have the misfortune of being parents.

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Keywords: school salary tuition parents children tuition

19 Comments

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adb2014

So if I understand it correctly, the job pays 300,000 a year and 50% of that goes towards tuition? That leaves roughly 16,000 a month and I know from raising two kids myself, that can disappear pretty quickly. I do have a friend who works for a British Internaitonal School and because he's a teacher there, both his kids receive free tuition. So your demands don't sound that unreasonable to me, especially if you're working for a similar type of school.

Apr 27, 2016 12:39 Report Abuse

Guest14610332

Are you serious ? Your children are not your employer's responsibility. During employment you could end up having more children and expect free education for all. School will go in loss. Ridiculous expectation.

Apr 26, 2016 21:42 Report Abuse

Jack_lerkio

Have you actually tried negotiating with the schools about this. I haven't been here anywhere near as long as you have but I have always found that schools are willing to negotiate.

Apr 25, 2016 22:08 Report Abuse

Sinobear

Good advice. It's just that a lot of schools have a "take it or leave it" mentality and don't continue communication once they find out I have kids.

Apr 26, 2016 18:21 Report Abuse

Sinobear

That's true. It's just that I'm already in a backwater and I want a place more cosmopolitan for my kids. The irony is that I want to repatriate, but it's not possible to go for interviews when you're not there. Catch-22 all around.

Apr 26, 2016 18:18 Report Abuse

Sinobear

BTW: I write Blog posts from time-to-time. I never expect to have them resurface as articles. If you had a family to support, the above would be of interest to you. If not, why bother even reading it?

Apr 25, 2016 17:54 Report Abuse

silverbutton1

Home school them then. GL!

Apr 25, 2016 13:11 Report Abuse

Sinobear

Not an option for me.

Apr 26, 2016 18:16 Report Abuse

Englteachted

Hold on! You expect what? Free tuition for your twins?So you expect the school to give you 150,000rmb more per year than a teacher with no children because ... Not based on qualifications , not based on experience simply because you had children in a country that offers no free education and you have no money to afford to pay for their education. Are you American (I know Americans have this retarded belief that having children should entitle them to all sorts of benefits, I'm curious if this retarded belief is propagated elsewhere) ? Your children are your responsibility, if you can't afford them then don't have them. Honestly I think the school is being very nice in offering you that big of a discount. You have 2 children in a country where people routinely have only one. So your discount is actually 1 free seat. But you expect to come here and be given some special treatment not even afforded to locals? You're complaining about receiving extra benefit that other foreign teachers with better qualifications won't receive because they were responsible enough to not have children they can't afford to take care of. You're complaining about the cost of having children, yes what idiot doesn't know that children are expensive? That's why they plan and prepare or simply decide not to have children.

Apr 25, 2016 09:56 Report Abuse

Sinobear

I never said that I wanted more money, I was making the point that the tuition should be more equitable compared to the salary. Comparing the situation of the locals is not logical, either. The issue here is not whether someone has or doesn't have children, it's about the possibility of employing a teacher long-term that understands responsibility and commitment who shouldn't have to subsidize their own employment. But hey, I'll try to keep future Blog posts under 140 characters and only use primary school-level writing to make things easier for all to understand. Here's a great offer for the Yale set: http://news.yale.edu/2016/04/21/yale-students-awarded-two-year-teaching-fellowships-china

Apr 25, 2016 17:42 Report Abuse

Englteachted

So a bigger discount in tuition is not the same as more money? You clearly state that you expect a bigger tuition discount. You can word it whatever way you want but it's still the same thing. Just because someone has a child they're more responsible? BS! I have nothing against people with children but looking down on people who don't requires facts being brought forth. A responsible adult is a responsible adult (with or without kids). I would expect a responsible adults to put them selves in a more stable situation jobwise so they won't have to complain about their employer doing more to help with the burden of raising kids. Having kids does not mean anything when it comes to whether a teacher will stay or go or be responsible. And discounted tuition is a cost incurred by the school and a benefit received. You can look down on me all you want but it does change the fact that you are in the wrong. I have a BS, unless you have a MA or PhD you have no higher ground to stand on. But lets not compare me to you. Lets compare you to you. You with 2 kids entitles you to more remuneration and benefits than you without kids? And you need to learn the difference between subsidizing your own employment vs taking care of your own responsibilities. Your kids education has nothing to do with employment.

Apr 25, 2016 18:45 Report Abuse

mike168229

?

Apr 25, 2016 19:43 Report Abuse

RandomGuy

I always suggest getting your own visa through an agent (or better, getting a spouse visa) and starting your own private/group tuition at home. Assuming that you charge 100RMB per student (cheaper than any training center) and that you have 10 students per group, I let you calculate the potential profits for you and yourself alone. 20 lessons per week means 80000RMB per month, no ESL job in China can beat that. And finding students is incredibly easy since you charge less than training centers and that you are a Foreign face, of course speaking Mandarin help a lot, otherwise just ask your wife to do the communication for you. Schools and centers will hate you to death for 'stealing' students from them, but there is nothing they can do about it. Actually the only reason they take advantage of you is your honesty, if you start playing the game then you will take shares of that market from them in a blink.

Apr 25, 2016 08:40 Report Abuse

Englteachted

If it's private tutoring, its legal.

Apr 25, 2016 09:57 Report Abuse

Englteachted

People are so simple minded. It is against the law to work for a company unless you have a work visa. It is illegal to start a company .... whatever conditions. Private tutoring is neither working for a company or a business. Can you figure out the rest yourself? No, let me help you, private tutoring is not against the law.

Apr 25, 2016 12:46 Report Abuse

Englteachted

Says the coward posting under guest

Apr 25, 2016 15:42 Report Abuse

Jack_lerkio

There are many laws that private tutoring breaks. Earning without paying tax is against the law. To pay tax you need to declare that you are self-employed. If you are a foreigner and self-employed in China then you need a business licence. Also an agent provided visa will mean that you are hired by that agent. These agents often break laws to get these visas. Let's take the the legality of the situation out of the equation. Self tutoring, aside from for a bit of extra earnings on top of your salary, isn't a good idea. Not as you suggest anyway. Perhaps as a legal business and paid for advertising then it would be worthwhile. Firstly the statement that finding students is easy is complete bullshit. Yes, finding some students is easy. However finding the right amount of students that you will need to keep up the sort of income that you are claiming people could earn is not easy. One of the biggest issues with private tutoring is the fact that students are not reliable. You can get around this by making new students pay for a certain amount of classes upfront and informing them that if they miss a scheduled class without informing you then their money is forfeit. But this sort of tactic will hinder you as not everyone can pay upfront. You will certainly cover your ass in regards to students bailing on classes but you are also losing revenue by the loss of students. This also nullifies the statement that you are cheaper than training centers. Many training centers are expensive but many cost less or similar to the 100RMB an hour quote, with the added bonus that you can get taught by multiple teachers. Also a foreign face is a hinder as much as it is a benefit. Yes many students want to learn from native speakers but most beginners do not. They want to be taught in Chinese. Perhaps you're capable of doing that but as Chinese are not very forward thinking then your foreign face will tell them that you're not capable of doing that. You know I always find these comments interesting. I feel like the people that make them are not actually doing what they say. I mean if you are then please provide proof and advise us on how we can achieve what you have. I know many people who have tried this and in the short term it is fantastic. You may even hit that amount that you suggest. But it won't last. I found most of the people I know to have attempted this to have quit by 3 months and started working for a regular school. The main issue was the students they received were from their local area. Often recruited by their wife or friends and once these student had had their taste and got bored there was no replacement students to be had.

Apr 25, 2016 21:04 Report Abuse

Pahionius

Yeah man, I feel you. But what did you expect? Before foreign teachers were needed to educate. Now they are needed to show face to their parents and justify a huge cost that Chinese parent spent for their amazing beloved child. From the 1st of May there will be another news regarding regulations for laowai English teachers. I am not a racist, but do not be surprised to see government criteria that you have to be WHITE native speaker. But anyway, TIC

Apr 25, 2016 08:37 Report Abuse

dyanisis

BOO HOO BOO HOO

Apr 25, 2016 07:24 Report Abuse