Job Discussion Forums

[kungfuman]

I've got a bud who is in tight with some school owners in Suzhou, Jiangsu and we crossed paths yesterday. In our conversation he mentioned severe tightening of rules for FTs in Jiangsu ( or perhaps all of China) . Mentioned that credentials such as degrees and transcripts will have to be certified or notarized or apostatized by schools or government agencies.

Said that the Chinese govt is aware that many FTs are using phony documents and as a result of this crackdown many FTs will lose their visa status or ability to get a Chinese resident permit.

I haven't spoke to my boss yet but we all got notified that contract negotiations for NEXT year will start this week. His secretary did mention that new visa rules will come into play which means the process will be much harder and take much longer. Usually we discuss new contracts in May and I vaguely remember the boss mentioning new rules in the last meeting but he didn't go into detail.

Anyone have an input for factual rules coming into play this year?

Personally I have nothing to hide as I went to 5 years of college and university and all my educational experience can be verified but my buddy said the market for teachers will become tighter as the available teachers will shrink due to the new visa regulations and he cautioned me NOT to sign a new contract with my existing school as salaries for qualified and experience teachers should jump because of a smaller available pool of teachers.

What say you Dave's bunch? I am not sure if my school will put any pressure on me to resign a contract but I want to make the most $ that I can while I am here. I have been at the current school for 4 years and I get a pretty decent deal.

Thanks.

[Jmbf]

Finally. Maybe this will weed out some of the cowboys. To be honest this mirrors regulations already in place in many other countries. I can only see this improving the overall quality of English teachers in China so in my mind it's a good thing.

[jimpellow]

Thanks for the well written update.

As I have expressed opinion on before, what is actually occurring is that jurisdictions like Jiangsu are getting around to implementing the new regulations that were implemented in a three phase process during 2013-2014 from the central government.

Yeah, they are really piling it on the ESL teacher in China. One would think that salaries should indeed need to rise significantly to attract enough teachers with "real" qualifications to offset the good percentage who will be weeded out.

One could note, however, that salaries have barely budged over the last couple years. Yet, it is reported that the number of ESL teachers has dropped over this time. This has most likely been due to....

- fears of pollution.
- increased awareness of bad behavior by Chinese recruiters, schools and the population in general.
- an increased tax burden to both the schools and teachers.
- inflation.
- the increased costs in terms of time and expense to meet other new regulations.
- fewer 'qualified" teachers due to newer regulations like the CBC. ("We see that you were arrested in 1985 for cow tipping. We do not allow freaks like you the opportunity to have the privilege of teaching in our country.")

Personally, I am getting more and more contacts a week, usually from Chinese recruiters, for "great opportunities" in the PRC. I find this amazing as I left China 3-4 years back and have not put out an active resume since that time. I assume they have become desperate and are mining old resume databases.

Yet despite their apparent desperation, the salaries in general seem only a little higher than when I left. In some cases, the good old Chinese nature shines on through. Such as one contact which offered a whopping 11k in a tier one city for an Economics and Business high school subject teacher with half winter break pay and no summer pay. And, no Chinese lessons!!!

So I would suggest to the OP to not necessarily count on the laws of supply and demand to play in your favor...at least in the shorter term.

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

[The bear]

I don't think it's hot air.

Just two days ago a former colleague asked me if my current position had me notorize my degree (currently they don't), as their university was requiring this due to "new rules".

Their university is a small, not famous, university in a place people outside the province haven't heard of. Yet I'm in Guangdong at a reputable institution. I can only imagine the situation will change for the whole of China in the coming years.

The visa process is already quite complex for China (what with the medical) having to notorize a degree will put more people off. As well as hopefully cutting down on the fake degree holders. I do not expect salaries to increase because of this.

[Shanghai Noon]

I'm tempted to be happy, as I don't have a criminal record and my education credentials are real and legitimate, but I have to agree with Bud on this one. You gotta be careful what you wish for sometimes.

[Non Sequitur]

Two factors that may result in less teachers coming forward.
1. Better hiring situation in US
2. Weakening RMB
Bad timing by Chinese as a further credential-based restriction could give a double (make that triple) whammy.
Be interesting to see how this plays.

[thechangling]

I can attest to these new rules. For Hubei province I've just had to notarise and authenticate (with translation) my Masters degree before returning to a different school in February 2016.
In New Zealand I was told you can expect to pay about $60 for a notarisation (although the lawyer who did mine did it for free) and the authentication is $65 and done by the Department of Internal Affairs.
Things in China are now on a par with South Korea it would seem.

[bestteacher2012]

[happeningthang]

There has been a tightening up of rules - fo' sho' - but they're not that difficult to deal with.

One thing is the rules we were given tell us the Chinese Consulate must authenticate the degree.

Has anyone gone through this?

I hear some consulates will only do it for ORIGINAL degrees - and not for copies....

[OhBudPowellWhereArtThou]

[The bear]

Perhaps the March 2016 batch of teachers will be the first to go through this? I expect a lot more will have to do it for the September start.

I also agree with other people in this thread - schools will just hire students/wrong visas.

[dean_a_jones]

Can also confirm for Hubei--this year teachers need to sign some form about criminal background (not needing to do a check yet it seems) and need to have degree notarized. The second part is the worst, as it is required to be done (at least according to the school) by the Chinese embassy in your home country--a real headache for people needing to renew their RP before heading home for the summer holidays. They will either need to do it by proxy/agent or something, or have to head back before to do it (notice has bit too close to Spring Festival to arrange that for most at this point) or let their current RP lapse and have to go though all the z-visa junk again at home. Luckily for me this is my last year, so I don't have to worry about any of this. And for anyone new to arrive, I guess it is just one more thing to hand in when doing the z-visa application, but not much fun for those here that somehow need to get this done between now and summer.

[The_Kong]

It's true, we just heard from the local PSB starting January 1st 2016 all degrees need to be verified by a Chinese consulate/embassy.

I'm going through the hiring process now with some new recruits so I'll keep you guys updated to see exactly what the entails.

[hz88]

I've been a bit busy recently so haven't had chance to reply earlier.

As with anything in China it seems to be enforced differently in different provinces.

This is not new, but things have been stepped up markedly since this summer. I mentioned in previous posts about the requirement of original documents for verification.

In Shanxi, apostled or notarised documents are not required for the initial invitation letter but the original copy must be presented later to be exchanged for a resident permit. If it is not then the RP will not be granted and employment terminated forthwith. We had to change our contracts to incorporate this and make it clear to new hires that we must under no uncertain terms see the original matching documents and if you haven't got them then don't bother accepting the job.

I can't speak for other provinces, however the online application system which is initially used is identical but the actual SAFEA office may have different rules later on in the process. If it is problematic getting notarised copies and you do genuinely have the originals then I would make a counter suggestion that you can provide this later and see if they will accept it.

I would imagine that some schools and rightly so have taken it upon themselves to introduce this as a failsafe to stop issues further down the line.

If they really want you then the chances are they will with the right relationships agree to this arrangement but and there always is a but in China, it depends on where you are.