Job Discussion Forums

[Piper]

I have periodically seen comments along the lines of schools charging students top dollar, but do not pay teachers.

What do schools actually charge in Shanghai and Beijing? Has anyone ever seen a price list? Is it "x" yuan per hour or "x" yuan per "y"-hour course? Is there a difference with corporate clients? Do they still charge per student in-house at the company or just one fee per hour?

Any info from those in the know would be appreciated, especially from larger schools like Wall Street as I know they charge the most in any city (obviously to pay for their overhead).

Thanks!

[Roger]

I have never worked in either of these locations, but I have gained enough insight in how things are being done in Guangdong and Hong Kong.

Here a few random examples:
My first training centre boss advertised: Evening classes with expat teacher (he even inserted 'professor' in front of my name!), 3 times a week, two hours each time, for two months (24 lessons).

The charged 448 RMB at that time. (That was in 1995, and my salary then was a fraction of my current ones).
He restricted the number of students to 20 - rather unusual, but not maintained long enough. Soon I had 25, then 30 participants.
I also had other duties, but you can easily see that this class paid for my salary.

Another training centre charged 500, with no limit on the student enrollment. On day 1, it would be 40 adults, next time 45, then 50, later the number would drop again. This class more than paid for my salary, but my job was not stable. In fact, I was teacher no. 3 to walk into that class, and 6 weeks later, I was replaced out of the blue (but given another job by the same school).

Then, a rogue operator hired me. She offered me good pay and would negotiate a deal with school principals who were responsible for recruiting pupils.
I taught up to 70 kids (in their spare time, imagine their enthusiasm!). I had to teach 8 lessons that cost the parents 430 RMB. Multiply that with 70, deduct 8x 150 RMB in wages for me - and that was the profit she and the principal shared between them.

This is a very common modus operandi now!

Corporate clients: I would say they pay up to double your own salary (even if you freelance), but they make your life a bit complicated by their ad hoc modifications to the timetable and the class composition!

[eric the king]

Roger
Has nothing good ever happened to you in China? Not one positive experience to balance all this constant talk of cheats, rogues and the like??

[Roger]

Take off those blinkers and see things for yourself instead of misinterpreting someone else's comments!

[Piper]

Thanks for the info. So it seems around 500 rmb/student, but varying lengths of classes and sizes. Interesting. Thanks again.

[Seth]

The training center at my school was live-in, and each student payed 2000 RMB a month. The most we've had was 18 students, which comes out to 36000 RMB a month. Of that I got about 1800 yuan for 16 hours a month (apart from students seeing me at every meal or invading my room). Someone made a fair chunk of change, and it wasn't me or the Chinese teachers!
Of course, all the spare money was pocketed instead of invested, and now the training center has gone under.

[arioch36]

An idea about prices in Henan, whcih should be cheaper? One summer I taught a class for 4 weeks? 5? five days a week, two hours a day. Advertised as their highest level english class (Even had a picture of me in the papaer, ++++ invites Mr. Chris as their foreign language expert...I gues China is where we can all get our ten minutews of fame?)
A little over 20 students, 800 RMB per head...16,000 RMB (Though i did do pretty well, I got about a third, overhead was a third maybe, so that's a pretty high percentage for a mere teacher

[Edward]

For the 1 1/2 years I have been here, I have some numbers to share:

First school
private school located in mountains north of GZ. Students learned all subjects, kindergarden to Sr levels
Student price: 45,000 RMB a semester

Training Centers [I.E.L.T.S., Oral English, Business English]
All roughly the same--1,000-1,200 per student, 40 hours over one month [I.E.L.T.S. is the exception. Students had multiple teachers for various parts: reading, listening, writing, oral]

"Live -in" Oral English type training center
18,000-22,000 per 4 month semester

Subtract the usual from all above for teacher salaries, advertising, taxes, related office expenses and most all schools/training centers made heaps of money! The only difference is the IELTS again. They only charged abou 1,000 RMB per student, yet had to pay up to 5 teachers. The Chinese teachers make the same as the foreigners: 150 RMB/hour, some cases higher. These classes HAD to be full--at least 30 or more students for them to make any real profit.

Hope that helps
Michael