Job Discussion Forums

[sigmoid]

Here's the latest scheme: hire native speakers (volunteers) and pay them the same rate as local teachers...

Vietnam lays red carpet to welcome foreign teachers
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/fms/education/57606/vietnam-lays-red-carpet-to-welcome-foreign-teachers.html

some excerpts:

[LettersAthruZ]

When I had lived in Hai Phong a few years ago, they were doing this s**t!

The local PRIVATE (for profit) University had teamed up with some Kiwi agency and they were sending over these recent high school graduates who had told me that they were led to believe that this was an exciting volunteer experience where they would bring English language knowledge to some totally destitute jungle/highlands village.

They just about lost it when I tole 'em that Hai Phong is the third-largest city in Viet Nam and that the PRIVATE university was a for-profit and, shortly thereafter, there were a few telephone calls back to their program coordinators!

This just looks like a new play on that scam....

[vabeckele]

We are getting it at both ends.

Yes, Letters, this is or was also going on in Danang. Actually the rhetoric is because food is cheaper et cetera, the wages are also lower - Funny. The fees to the students remain the same.

I am getting tired of all of the angles.

For some reason companies, as well as universities lately want me to pay taxes even though the work is under the table. When I think of all of the complications this entails...for everyone involved, jeez - you should see one of my contracts, one of them is really funny. I have two, one declaring tax and the other not so. This, even when the govt. administrator is right there closing the door on govt. involvement. Take this, and the stuff the Anglo Saxon countries are doing, what chance does an English teacher have here? As long as both parties get a new shiny centre or university...get to sell education products, the teachers can go fish.

When has it ever been different? One organisation wanted me to teach for free, volunteer, for a few months. When I found out they were all staying at the Hilton and the classes were all at the Hilton...jeez.

[mark_in_saigon]

I think this kind of crazy stuff has always been going on, and will continue to. It is the nature of the system. I think that organization that has taken over the ESL employment ads on CL here in VN is a similar example. If you send them a serious letter, they will not respond, they know what they are looking for, just these very young, gullible people they can take advantage of. We have all met some of these kids, they come over on a hope and a prayer and get more than they bargained for. This is the way their system is here. I really believe there is a rather thin layer of the market that is for serious teachers, and a more or less equally thin supply of serious teachers. All this other churning around is for the larger share of the market which is served by any and all. It is not pretty. I think we all need to recognize what part of the market we are trying (and qualified) to serve so we can know what our approach should be and what we are up against (and to). All these infusions of non serious/unqualified/non native English speaker teachers just constantly alters the dynamics of the market, as even these (so called) higher level organizations are not immune from the greedy thoughts of how much more money they could make by employing these lower cost people.

I do not see any central authority making the thoughtful moves that would create a solution to these issues. It is always how to improve short term financial gain, not how to create an intelligent long term process for actually improving things.