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[Joanne Light Miller]

COPY OF ARTICLE BEING PUBLISHED IN NEWSPAPERS/TEACHERS' ASSOCIATIONS AND GROUPS GLOBALLY AS WE READ


EX-PATRIATE TEACHERS IN HONG KONG
ORGANISING TO FIGHT UNFAIR TREATMENT



by Joanne Miller Light

Expatriate teachers in Hong Kong have begun organizing to protect their interests. The Expatriate Teachers� Association (ETA), is now up and running and looking for members. Any expatriate teacher (ET) who has taught, is looking to teach, or is presently teaching in Hong Kong can join this association whose mission is �to protect and promote the welfare of all expatriate teachers in Hong Kong regardless of what they teach or what sort of institution they work for.� The ETA aims to use Hong Kong�s well-written but much neglected basic law as a tool to protect and advance the welfare of expatriate teachers in Hong Kong.

Teachers from English Speaking Countries have been flocking to the tiny Chinese special administrative region of Hong Kong to ply their trade in government and private institutions alike for many years. In 1997 the Hong Kong government�s Education and Manpower Bureau (EMB) began a scheme to employ native speaking English teachers (NETS) in the secondary schools and, in 2002, they added a scheme for primary teachers, known as PNETS. Recently, the government schemes have come under attack in the press for their unfair treatment of these teachers.

As local principal, Michael Chan Ka-wai, in a recent article in Hong Kong�s English Daily, The South China Morning Post, put it: �NETs don�t get enough respect from their schools.� Another added that they do not receive enough professional recognition or support.

According to testimonies of teachers experiencing difficulties in their schools, this is where the problem largely lies�the scheme with its guidelines for new curriculum development is resented by the schools, already inundated with exam preparatory stress and threatened by change. As one NET said, �I think the whole thing revolves around my supervisor�s view, and probably that of the principal, that the NET scheme is fairly useless to the school. Of course, any attempt to do things differently to the way they do things results in a confrontation, with me having to justify what I see as just standard EFL teaching practice.�

The NET teacher is caught in a big-holed net between a rock and a hard place. The �rock�, the EMB�s NET management team boldly talks of NETs bringing change. As PNET manager Chris Wardlaw said at the PNET orientation in August, 2002. �Remember, change stops at the door of your school but you (PNETS) are �agents of change� and your mandate is to institute the new curriculum guidelines.� But the �hard place�, the schools, who are the actual employer of the NETS sign, are up to their ears with the old curriculum�model answers, rote learning, dictation, exam preparation�and, as one veteran local primary teacher, Amy Chan stated: �We know how our students learn.� When the resentment, backstabbing and abuse by the local staff against the well-meaning NET gets too much and 100% negative reports are secretly being written and compiled as evidence against him or her it is time to act. AS one PNET stated: �It didn�t matter how much I tried or what the students achieved�external awards, whatever�my schools only kept a tab of my �misdemeanors��five minutes late here, etc.� and another: � I'm just not responding to anything he sends me as every comment or reply that I make seems to be used and distorted to make it look as though I am somehow challenging his authority� � When NETs reach out to the EMB placement and support unit for help they get fobbed off with rhetoric about �school based management�.

PNETs get even worse treatment from the advisory teachers (ATs) in management, their fellow expats who are also caught up in the EMB�s passing-the-buck brand of problem-solving: �I don�t think you�re cut out to be a PNET�, Dawn Irwin, assistant manager snips with rhetorical scissors. "I am sorry your engagement as a PNET in Hong Kong has not worked out as well as you and the schools would have wished it to be." (manager Chris Wardlaw to a distraught PNET) Through the net, the NET tumbles. Witness some of the cries as NETs fall. (Because some are still hanging onto ledges, some must remain anonymous.

A Canadian man with a decade plus of successful experience at home and abroad, whose teaching ability was impugned by a less experienced AT falling, now caught: pursuing legal action against his school through the ETA.

�After a year I still had little or no information as to my rights and legal status as an employee and I had received a dismissal notice. When I queried this with the EMB, they used their position of arbitrary power, taking no regard to the existing facts or the specific wording of the contract. Luckily an acquaintance referred me to the ETA who took immediate action and retained a lawyer on my behalf. Finally the issues are being clarified and dealt with in a professional manner.�

A secondary NET stumbles: �I have been criticised on the e group at times for being too negative and critical of the scheme and of schools. I have heard some real horror stories though and I believe that principals and people in power positions here are getting away with some very vindictive and unprofessional actions against their local colleagues, as well as NETs.�

A PNET on the edge looks in the window: �because of the feudalistic nature of the system here unchecked conspiracies lurk in many staff rooms in HK�

And another--see him slip. �I think I am in a similar position having had an abusive base principal - no co-planning, no co-teaching, 32 periods per week in classes by myself, working in both schools each week. I asked Simon Tham (PNET director) for a transfer in Feb. but he said to wait until the end of the year. I am now being stalled by the bureaucracy who are saying that � You will forfeit your gratuity and - There aren't any schools available.�

Another PNET, shattered on the sidewalk, hears stone cold silence from Wardlaw, PNET manager.

�I am being abused daily and plots toward my dismissal abound. I have pages of school rule infractions against me and I have never even been given a copy of school rules. I had to phone you to get any word from you. I have never received a proper written response addressing my points or answering my request for my contract to be paid out. (after transfer was denied). As manager of a billion dollar programme, you are amiss to consider your correspondence so lightly as to not answer it.�

The new association ETA is hoping to mend the net before more NETs fall (or jump). It states on its website, �ETA will offer funding and referral for legal advice and in some cases legal action.� The ETA also hopes to encourage teachers to insist on much more-tightly worded contracts to protect their rights. Many expatriate teachers from countries with strong systems of industrial law get starry eyed at the prospect of big money and or an exciting cultural experience in Hong Kong and sign away their rights in deals which give all the power to the school and leave teachers open to abuse--grueling working hours and arbitrary dismissal. The EMB does have a procedure for investigating the firings of teachers but in practice this is just a rubber stamp for the arbitrary power of principals.
ETA President Mark Aldred writes, �We would urge all teachers to avoid taking up employment in the NET scheme in Hong Kong until these matters are resolved. At very least they should get working hours and holidays written in and, on no account come here without a satisfactory contract singed by the school before they leave home. Teachers need to be particularly careful about clauses which allow schools to withhold salary increments and gratuities in the case of unsatisfactory performance. Based on anecdotal evidence, it would seem that many schools are simply not capable of objectively assessing NET teacher performance. There is therefore a danger that schools will use these clauses to bully NETs into submission even more than has been the case already.�
A PNET concurs, stating: �I have seen little or no evidence, or even a concept, of professionalism within the local primary system�

Already, international awareness of the situation of NETs in Hong Kong is gaining momentum. A local English panel supervisor, Lam Mei Shan, complained about a project, started by her PNET to address the curriculum guideline� more communication between cultures, �She spends too much time on penfriends.� After the project was cancelled, a school principal from Halifax, Canada wrote: �As a partner in the penfriend project I can say that my students were excited by the possibilities of new friendships and opportunities to communicate with children from a different culture. They were disappointed that the project ended before it could really get going, but in spite of that there are a few who are in ongoing communication with their penfriends through email. I think that it is tragic that a PNET teacher has received such bad treatment by the school authorities, and hope that this injustice can be rectified. It is Hong Kong's loss that she is no longer teaching there - I am sure that her teaching was a ray of light in what sounds like a rather oppressive and rigid system.�

Local teachers are just as oppressed by the school authorities as the NETs. They tremble when the English Panel Chairs walk by. �I know her character but can�t say anything.� �a 30 year veteran local teacher of St. Patrick�s School. Their �union� (HKPTU) gives them advice such as: �Be very careful not to do or say anything that will disturb your Panel Chair. Remember, be very quiet and there are lots of other things in life you can enjoy.�

St. John�s Counselling Centre on Hong Kong Island reports counseling NETS with tearfulness, high anxiety, exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, self-doubt and hopelessness and reports that the stressors and precipitating factors are: requirement to implement conflicting teaching methods of the PNET curriculum and school curriculums; feelings of discouragement resulting from her unsuccessful; attempts to accommodate both PNET curriculum needs and school needs; long hours under difficult working conditions and working in an unsupportive and hostile environment.

One NET teacher in Sai Kung writes: �HK Education Department has been able to attract some of the worlds most experienced and gifted teachers to the NET scheme, only to have many of us work in some intolerable working environments with little support and to get treated the way they treat their Philippine maids.� This is particularly frightening when one looks at the numerous articles and court cases involving the abuse of Philippine maids by employers in Hong Kong.

As ETA says, �Think long and hard about coming to Hong Kong. When the cost of living and the cost to health of the stress are taken into account, it might not me such a good deal�. At the least contact us www.offedge.net/eta before you do and we can show you how to protect yourself.