Job Discussion Forums

[chinafriendhere]

I just talked to a friend of mine. He said all schools in Dandong were closed by the government because of SARS. He said, one school with foreign teachers declared bankruptcy. He said they sold all their assets and locked the doors. Is this common in other cities?

[MyTurnNow]

Yes....but not common enough.

But seriously folks...a lot of the little schools are barely scraping by anyway. The SARS thing has stopped or reversed cash flows, and these places just can't survive it.

MT

[Owen]

Yes, at least in Liaoning Province it seems to be pretty common. I technically owned a kindergarten that my Chinese step-daughter ran including teaching some basic English, (her English is not bad after living with me for a year) and we didn't go bankrupt but sold out to a local after the government ordered all the lower schools closed in that city. Also, I know of another foreigner who was in a partnership with a local and running a training center. She did go bankrupt and returned to England.

Bigger training centers with plenty of guanxi managed to keep operating at reduced levels. Officially closed, but you could see a few students still coming and going. The smaller centers just laid off all the help and sweated it out. They can re-open now, but parents are still afraid of sending their little emporer/empress.

[MissMolly]

I work for a private language school in Liaoning Province. We have been closed since May 1. Luckily, my fellow teachers and I have been farmed out to various public schools, so we are all still working. But, no language school classes. Every week, we hear, "Maybe this week".
But, the school is still solvent. Must have something to do with the comment by the public school teacher who asked if foreign teachers really made RMB 10,000/month.
I'm not looking forward to first class back with my kindies who will have been without any English for 6 or 7 weeks!