Job Discussion Forums

[PBirm123]

I arrived in Dalian a few weeks ago and really like my training center. My boss and most of my co-teachers are friendly and supportive. Most of the teachers I know work very hard. But from what other foreign teachers have told me, most of these Chinese teachers make only about 2500 RMB a month, 3000 if they have some seniority.

Is that true? I know wages are comparatively low all across the board in China, and the same Chinese teacher would make more in Beijing or Shanghai, but I find it hard to believe that a skilled position of 160 hours per month nets them only about ~$450.

I feel guilty not having to do much preparation at all, as I mostly just play games with the children and do oral English. But I get paid 4x what they do, and probably work about half as hard. Granted.. most of these Chinese teachers speak sh*t English, and I have to speak as slowly to them as I do with the children, but damn..

[johntpartee]

The only place that I've ever been where I absolutely KNEW what the Chinese teachers earned was in 2009 in Henan (English teachers only, I don't know what the full professors made). They were pulling down 2100 RMB per month for a much heavier workload (office hours, mostly). This was a government university.

[kungfuman]

I asked my Chinese girlfriend about this. She said teacher in a training center makes about 2000y a month to start. But they also work slave hours - 6 days a week, 1 day off, and often 9-10 hours a day.

I do part time work in a training center and the girl who pays me - the head teacher - gets insanely jealous to know that I make 180y an hour and do so little work compared to her ( she works hard, granted). But as the head teacher she makes a whopping 2500y a month and not only teaches but has a lot of paperwork to do.

[Javelin of Radiance]

I also do a bit of part time work in one of these centers. Pretty much the same thing as kungfuman said, the girls I work with earn between 2000-3000 a month. For some of them, especially the ones whose parents are farmers or factory drones, it's still a step up in life.

[Harbin]

[muffintop]

Depends on a number of factors but I know for sure where I live part time TA's often get 10-20RMB per class. This is at private mills.

Though I will tell you now that the earnings of real CT's goes far and beyond salary. Do not fall for the sob story of "Oh you make so much more than I do". Only suckers believe those lies.

In many situations we make far less than the real CT's.

[rogerwilco]

In Nanjing I dated a CT that worked in a training center. She earned 2500 a month.
Her ambition was to save up enough money to buy a job at a public school. The cost of a job at a public school is a years salary, but she believed that she would then have access to ways of making at least 15,000 a month.

[Non Sequitur]

In Qingdao you can get a trained teacher for one-on-one Mandarin lessons from 50 to 75 RMB per hour. This is about half what a FT can get at a language school on a Saturday morning.
But, that doesn't explain some fancy motor vehicles in the college car park on work days.

[dean_a_jones]

The Chinese teachers I know earn a base salary (~2,000RMB per month) which is their contract. They are then paid for their actual working hours on top of this at a relatively low rate (60 - 100RMB). I think this system is relatively common, as it gets teachers on contract but allows the employer to be flexible in terms of hours given out.

[sui jin]

In Nanjing I dated a CT that worked in a training center. She earned 2500 a month.
Her ambition was to save up enough money to buy a job at a public school. The cost of a job at a public school is a years salary, but she believed that she would then have access to ways of making at least 15,000 a month.

This is the key difference between CTs and FTs - FT's base salary is about all you get (plus accomodation, and airfare). The CTs base salary is notional and they will have many other ways to earn money (from parents, from introducing private teachers, selling books etc ).
Some of my fellow teachers were driving new cars: no way they saved the money from a salary of 2500 per month.
Some stories you hear are shocking : one student had to pay his teacher several hundred RMB a term , just to sit in the front of a (very large) middle school class.
And paying for a job in public uni or school is common , I believe. One CT I knew was offered a job in my Uni , but she refused (on principle) to pay the bribe /kickback , so of course was not hired.

Incidentally , when I tell my chinese freinds here the salary I get at Uni , they laugh - because it is ridiclulously low . They seem to think all FTs are earning 15K a month plus for teaching English.

[Toast]

[Javelin of Radiance]

[Toast]

[Javelin of Radiance]

I didn't want to ramble . maybe repost it later.

[LarssonCrew]

Actually, as my best friend was a manager for Kid Castle here in Xi'an[he's Chinese], I can clarify that some do come with those benefits.

For Chinese teachers, they would typically receive:

1500RMB basic salary
40RMB per class taught
Power to choose number of classes[upto say 40 a week, which almost meant that they controlled how much the foreigner could work.]
Meal allowance of 25 RMB a day
travel allowance of 10 rmb a day
Accomodation allowance of I think 750 a month
Annual paid vacation to Asian country/HK etc
Treated to dinner once a month or so[swanky place]
Health insurance
2 months extra bonus at Spring festival
The managers[each branch had two] would each receive around 50,000 lump sum in a bonus.

For some reason LOTS of chinese seem to just randomly be given bonuses.

The same guys wife works for the tax office as a secretary, admin type.

She gets:

Accom allowance
Free lunch
Travel allowance
2000RMB salary
2000RMB 'performance bonus' per month
Overtime pay
Half years salary at Spring festival
Lots of free random gifts[she got 50Kilos of potatoes one week?!]

So yeah, the KidCastle thing, none of those are given to the foreigners except perhaps the accommodation allowance.

Talking of universities, the 'official' salary was 2,500, I went to collect my 5,000 salary once, and this older Chinese worker said 'geez, you get paid well, more than Chinese staff, you don't deserve it. We only get 2,500 a month!'

I laughed it off, then when I went outside I saw him climb into his brand new 500,000 RMB audi.

Another school has a 2+2 program with Canada, they said they wouldn't 'release' the official transcripts unless the students paid an 'admin fee' which turned out to 25,000 RMB. Without them they couldn't get the visa for Canada. So they paid 25,000 for 2 pieces of stamped paper.

All of which went to the admin and higher ups.

I emailed the Canadian University who had no idea it had been happening, and from them on gave an invitation letter to the students the next year, meaning they didn't require transcripts.

Needless to say I wasn't asked back.