Job Discussion Forums

[ricky49]

Deleted

[Jmbf]

Ricky - I like the way you think - you seem grounded yet hard-working and ambitious. What are your priorities regarding earning income, career development, work/life balance etc etc?

Regarding your options, I like option 2, but you need to think about what's possible with your visa. I assume you are on a standard working visa? I'm not sure how that would work with opening a centre. Need to do a bit of research there. Also, with language centres - the total revenue looks decent on paper, but then you need to consider expenses, rent, a receptionist, utilities, materials, marketing etc etc. From that 80K revenue you will probably be looking at a net income of 55K or less. That's a good jump from your current income, but it will probably be a lot more work as well. Also, you need to consider that you won't start off with 100 students right off the bat, it will take time to build up your student base. You will probably lose money in the beginning until your student numbers climb.

I've thought about setting up a language centre myself, but at the moment I'm still better off with my current setup (private tutor).

[TeacherTim]

Ricky,

Moneywise and personal development wise, I'd have to say no.3. The locals also love qualifications and teachers who have working knowledge of the local system. So, a PGDE will pay off in the long run if you stop here.

No.2 sounds good, but you haven't been in HK for that long, so unless you have a local partner you'll likely struggle to get things set up. Additionally, I think you'd need a business visa, certainly not your current one. Cost is also a factor. I wouldn't dream of opening my own school with much less than a million HKD to cover fees, advertising, staff, materials, office furniture and deco etc. I also think your 15k rent assessment is a bit on the low side. Right now we pay 10k a month for just 100 sq ft and this is just a market stall in east Kowloon and happily for us our rent is the cheapest in the area. I think for a suitable premises, you're going to need to splash a lot more cash and have money in reserve for lean months. Anyway, as I've said, I don't think this is an opinion until you get P.R in five years' time.

Good luck and keep us posted!