Job Discussion Forums

[Berlioz]

I�m in my late fifties, have a Master�s in TESOL and have been teaching ESL/EFL for over thirty years at colleges and universities in the U.S. and Asia. I would like to get a job in Hong Kong. Am I wasting my time due to my age? If not, at what time of year do job announcements usually get posted? I would prefer to teach writing. Is this a possibility? Is there a place in the NET scheme for me? Any knowledgeable advice or comments would be deeply appreciated.

[oxi]

There are plenty of NETs in their mid - late 50's here. Some individual schools may be unhappy with a more mature candidate, but not too many.

Recruitment is year round, though you may be too late for this September's intake. If you apply now, there's a slim chance you'd get on by then as the process is so slow. A few more are taken on in January.

As to teaching preferences, the school decides, although you can mention you're interested in teaching writing. I think it would be a bonus for schools with higher level students.

Check out http://www.edb.gov.hk/index.aspx?nodeID=262&langno=1 - then click on recruitment for Primary or Secondary - you'll see the Post-graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) is the key qualification for teaching in secondaries. I'm not sure if your Master's will be taken as equivalent.

[Marcoregano]

Just to expand on what Oxi's saying, the key requirement for the NET prog is QTS (qualified teacher status), or teacher certification as some prefer to call it. While some still scrape in without it it's getting harder to do so as competition for places is getting tougher.

Generally I'd say HK is fairly non-ageist. I know three NETS who are over 60 (but all recruited around 10 years ago) and a guy in charge of a uni further educn dept who's 64.

Best place to check for jobs is the classified section of the South China Morning Post http://www.classifiedpost.com.hk/

[Berlioz]

How does one get QTS, ie., Qualified Teacher Status? Is this determined by a central agency or by an individual school? I have a Master�s in TESOL from an accredited American university (in the U.S.) that required 30 semester hours of course work over nearly two years. I�d be loath to pursue another type of qualification that would duplicate the training I already have just to meet some requirement. I�d be shortchanging myself, and it would also raise questions about the worth of the Master�s I already have. Comments?

[Marcoregano]

[RiverMystic]

The key is practicum. Did your degree involve practice teaching of at least two months? If not, you don't have teacher status.

[Berlioz]

Without Qualified Teacher Status, what kind of jobs can you get with a Master's in TESOL?

[Tinseltown Rebellion]

OP, the problem is that, as other posters have remarked, your MA in TESOL does not really come into the equation, at least not as regards your position and placement on the all-important pay scale (HK is all about the money, honey), and especially not as regards the NET scheme, on which postgraduate degrees do not make one iota of difference when it comes to pay. You may well be in for a very good chance for a post in a language centre at one of the territory's various (so-called) 'universities' (I hesitate not to use the scare quotes), but, truth be told, pay is really quite very poor (maximum circa HK$25,000), benefits are non-existent (no housing allowance, no educational allowance, no flights), and prospects � if any � are bleak at the very best. Contracts are short (often as low as ten months) and you have to be prepared to work for and take orders from Hitleresque heads of departments (who are wholly unemployable outside of the Third World circuit). Toadyism, brown-nosing, backstabbing, gossip-mongering, and general power politics are the order of the day. Just Google 'HKIED' and 'CityU' to see what I mean. This is playground politics taken to an extreme, though by putative 'adults' in the 'educational' field. Also, was your MA in TESOL completed on a full-time basis and on campus? If not then you may well have problems having it recognised. Internet and distance (and Scottish/Irish) 'degrees' do not cut the mustard in HK, and in fact are openly scoffed at.

You might stand a slim chance of attracting an offer from a secondary school cum sixth form college for the post of NET, but your age and considerable experience may well count against you in so much as you would get HK$1,000 a month for each year of certifiable, full-time experience at an accredited institution. Even though it is the government who pays your salary, given their refugee status people in 'power' in HK tend to believe that every penny mentioned is a penny of their money and so also tend to be quite thrifty, to say the very least. Remember, it does not matter that this ultimately only serves to lower standards, after all, they have their kids in an international school or, better still, abroad in a boarding school.

My advice would be to seek a suitable � and vastly more lucrative � post at a university in Korea, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, or the ME (in that order of increasing lucrativeness). HK has gone down the pan, MOD EDIT