Job Discussion Forums

[Itsme]

We all know/wish we were making more.
We all speculate as to what our employers are making "off of us."

But have we ever sat down to do the math?

Let's assume we are dealing with a private language school, or anywhere besides a public school which must pay its own rent.

Economists come to the rescue please.
What are the factors that the employers must go through?
Rent?
Taxes?
Administrative staff?
Advertising?
___?

Finally, how much money do you think it takes to run a school for one month? I am guessing that it might be more than what some of us would guess, but on the other hand, the fact that some schools become defensive when asked how much money they make leads me to believe that it might not be so...

Obviously they must pay for these things by charging money for classes right?

So is there a formula one could use to determine a "fair" salary to ask for?

What percentage of a student's tuition should go to his/her actual teacher?



(Fun experiment)*********
Actually ask your employer what they charge each student. I did in the past and they immediately became very defensive.

[A'Moo]

You can actually go to many school's websites and find out. I was shocked to see that, at some schools, and not necessarily prestigious ones, a 3 month term's tuition fees ONLY were 24,000y....Keep in mind, 80% of the populace here makes between 800-1500y a month...Doctors make from 4000-6000y a month....Just how corrupt are the parents of kids we are educating?

[7969]

i have run a business in the past, a small hotel on phuket island for one year. it may seem simple to run an operation like that with only 11 rooms, but its not. there are your monthly expenses, your capital expenses, and all the unexpected ancillary expenses that occur almost daily. running that hotel was easy compared to running an english language training centre but the basic ideas are the same. expenses? it costs more than most people think.

further, some people on these forums seem to think that the more profit a school makes, then the more employee salaries should be increased, seemingly to infinity.

it doesnt work that way. not here or anywhere else. any particular job has a particular wage/salary bracket that all employees fit into, either at the higher or lower end, depending on experience, qualifications/job skills, status of the school (public/private) and a few intangibles.

as for schools getting defensive when asked about their profits, i would think that unless a school has shareholders, they dont need to reveal their profits to anyone as they dont have to report to anyone (other than the taxman).

rational salary expectations? for what kind of school and what particular job with what job requirements? plug in that information and the answer will appear.

[mlomker]

[Itsme]

Ok then we can pretend that we KNOW how much the businesses make.
At least if we could figure out what business X made it would be easier to guess what Y and Z were making.

If a school charged a student 500 RMB per hour for one on one tutoring, what could the teacher argue for in terms of salary?

Would it be in our best interest to share salary information? For example, if person A made 10,000 RMB per month, wouldn't it be in the interest of the other employees to know so that they could demand 10,000 as well? If so, then would the baseline salary FOR ALL rise to 10,000 RMB per month?

If information is NOT shared, then does this mean that salaries will stay low due to lack of research an knowledge on new employees? Heck, I can attest to the fact that overseas recruiters are now posting on local (USA) job boards with programs offering 3000 RMB per month. Throw in "Free Chinese lessons!" and one might expect this to be a great deal!

Another good topic might be (Written qualification VS real qualification.)
I am still not persuaded that a "certified" teacher is necessarily more "qualified."

And as I digress from my digression I come to the following conclusion: Man its time to go to bed [/b]

[clark.w.griswald]

In my opinion any teacher who wants to get the monetary benefits from a successful business (or school) should invest their own money in such as the owners have done and accept their share of losses along with any profits. Generally speaking a salaried employee chooses to have a secure monthly salary in lieu of the ups and downs of profitable and not so profitable months of business.

I don�t know how much it costs to run a school as I have never run one, but I have run a business before and can appreciate the investment of money, time, and emotion that goes into starting and operating a business of any size. Anyone who wants the benefits that come from this really needs to open themselves up to the vulnerabilities too.

You can�t always have your cake and eat it too as they say.

[Steppenwolf]

The costs and overheads are in general spread equally over the whole year, with a few spikes; the revenues, on the other hand, are subject to buffeting market forces that cause them to fluctuate wildly. You pay rent and advertising fees even during the spring holidays but you may have zero enrolment.


People who can't accept that a business person exacts a higher tuition fee from students than a freelancing teacher does are fantasising daydreamers! If it was so easy making money in the TEFL scene why do so many training centres flounder all the time?

The enrolment characteristics also change enormously! Years back you could bank on self-paying adults to feed your income; nowadays training centres have to supply their surplus teachers to public schools who pay a relatively low fee for using your staff! What's more, staff now have to commute; do you pay for that? Can you pass your extra costs on to your clients?

I notice too that training centres that farm their FTs out are equally disadvantaged as freelancers are by the fact that their clients often cancel a scheduled lesson at very short notice. Some training centres pay you even under such circumstances.

Competition is extraordinarily fierce and abrasive! Who survives? Yes - it's certain brand-names such as Crazy English or EF - not the most reputable outfits.