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Q: International or Local schools?
Those of you with kids, will you send your kid to international school or local schools? Are the international schools worth the money? Are they hard to get into?
9 years 30 weeks ago in Family & Kids - China
My kids go to an "international" kindergarten. They've previously attended a "Montessori" school (note "quotes"). Both are/were, "Pay us money, more of which we we ask you for at every turn...and keep your criticisms to yourself. This is China and blah blah blah."
I know the management team of Beijing's BIBA school. They are excellent with a HUGE waiting list.Now that it is fantastically profitable, the owners want to ditch the American administrators and replace them with Chinese sycophants.
My MIL works as a glorified babysitter at China's premier soccer academy. Fantastically high tuition, gorgeous facilities and totally crap teaching.
"Good" Chinese schools, even kindergarten, require a nice, fat hongbao to get into (even though that practice is illegal).
Preschool and kindergarten are "relatively" harmless either way. It's primary and above where the indoctrination are going to surpass learning. Most "good" kindys and primary schools are already focusing on Gaokao (university entrance test) materials to give the little dumplings an edge on their abysmal future.
Hence, I am planning my repatriation to the Great Nanny State from whence I came within the next two years in order to allow my sons to attend underfunded socialist free education.
I just keep thinking.... I am going to pay a whole lot of money to have someone from this website teach my kid. That is terrifying.
Just remember, doesnt matter how much you pay the school. Your going to have an underpaid teacher doing all the work.
And since the prevailing atitude here is that anyone who ever got a high paying job got it through luck and ass kissing, you probably have a better chance of getting good teachers by going to poor schools.
coineineagh:
Well, it's true that Chinese staff receive their placement and positions based on their looks. Light skin seems to be a major requirement, to not look too farmersy. I've personally witnessed hardworking, dark-skinned teachers getting weeks of their time wasted while the boss pretended they actually had a chance to get hired. So, there's a reason why many teachers don't believe skill equals competence here - foreign teachers are also hired based on appearance rather than skill. I've done Skype interviews with international schools where the manager already decided to hire me the moment he saw I really had light skin, asking very little about my actual credentials or work experience, and even ignoring the fact that I didn't have the teaching certification that was listed in his job posting. They don't show the same courtesy to dark-skinned foreigners looking for work, which may be a time saver I guess, but it's startling how hostile the bosses can get. I've read more than once how even light-skinned teachers get scolded and threatened for merely trying to reccommend a black person as employee to their boss. Even when the teacher throws his weight in the mix, the boss will still think: "0 white teachers in my school > 1 white & 1 black teacher in my school."
There is a little bit of real education going on in international schools. Some of the staff are decently competent at their work. But the amount of money they want you to cough up is not worth the meager returns. International schools also cater to the same "busy rote-learning all day" expectation locals have of education, so there is still much of the same going on there. And you will expose your child to the worst peers imaginable: The most entitled little government bully babies you've ever met, devoid of manners, judging each other's worth based on wealth from a young age. Don't expect your child to learn civilized, enlightened or even considerate behaviour there. Your kid won't learn that efforts are rewarded, just that you are what you were born into, and it's your lot in life to gloat or moan about it.
You want a good education? Leave China.
I didn't think there was a choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
My understanding was that Chinese kids couldn't go to real international schools. I also thought that foreign kids couldn't go to local Chinese schools.
Would be be interested to know from the parents here what the case actually is.
Nessquick:
yep, as I have info too, my son is not able to go to local chinese school. we were lucky with kindergarden, but for primary school, I do not think so. And as I am the one, who is strictly against hongbao ways, seems that I will have to leave and teach my son myself :)
You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. 
International schools can be very good but for one that is equal to a decent public school back in Canada would cost you about 150 000 - 300 000+ RMB per year here in China.
I have worked in a few (during my ESL days), and let me tell you that while they were okay... they were certainly not worth that kind of money.
Local schools... don't even think about it. The teachers there purposely suck so the parents have to send their children to the teacher's privately run training centers. If they don't send their children, the teacher will simply try to screw with their child's future. On top of that, if your child doesn't look 100% Chinese, the kids will tease them and taunt them. I saw it myself... three Chinese boys calling a half-half boy "lao wai" taking his toys and generally bullying him.
Teacher will do nothing about it... you will have to step in and deal with the situation. My friend told the father of the Chinese kid that was picking on his son that if the kid hit his son he would go and beat up the father... it worked lol.
If the child is in an international school, they don't really have these problems but as mentioned, you need to pay a lot of money. It is a sort of no-win situation. My opinion, you can raise the child here until they hit elementary school... then I would bring them back to a Western school.
None, when I have kids I'm high tailing it back home.I don't want to rise my children in this place.
In Jan 2015 is going to be 10 years in China, my daughter is 2, planning to leave within the next 2 year.
International School is a good option, but not sure whether I would want to raise my children here. Maybe in the outskirts of a bigger city.
The money... you have to wait for a job that pays for the school. Otherwise there is no affording it and it would be better to move home in that case.
International school can be really good: small classes, well-trained teachers. I would be worried about my kids being in a privileged environment, because it might make them feel entitled.
However, international schools are terribly expensive, something like 150 000 RMB/year where I live. In my case, an international school in China would cost at least double of what I would pay in taxes back home !!! Education is not *really* free back home, we pay taxes, but for that price, we get good education up to PhD level for close to nothing, good hospitals, a comprehensive healthcare system, and more.
Why I would pay more, for having less ? And on top of that, the pollution and society with Chinese characteristics. That's exactly why I try to go back home now.
