By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Is there a lack of native English teachers in China?
Relevant details out of yer favorite ... 
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/shocking-overhaul-china-bans-profit-tu...
In Shocking Overhaul China Bans For-Profit Tutoring, Wiping Out Billions In Value
Call it the end of "capitalism with Chinese characteristics" and the beginning of "socialism with socialist characteristics."
One day after Chinese tutoring and techedu stocks cratered the most in history after a report that China was seeking to ban for-profit school tutoring companies in a sweeping overhaul of the education sector, Beijing has done just that and on Saturday China unveiled an unprecedented crackdown on its $100 billion education tech sector, banning companies that teach the school curriculum from making profits, raising capital or going public.
The reason: as we explained yesterday, Beijing is scapegoating the sector for its own failure to reverse the ongoing shrinkage of China's population, and is blaming declining birth rates on "financial burdens from raising a child" as a result of surging tutoring costs. Apparently it never occurred to Beijing that the local housing bubble for example - the biggest in Chinese history - may have a far greater role in making "discretionary" spending - such as more children for example - impossible as the simplest of staples cost an arm and a kidney and apparently a second (and first) child. But of course, Xi would have to take the blame for that particular bubble; in the case of rampant tutoring costs, it's easier just to blame someone else.
And that's precisely what Beijing is doing with the following list of new regulations on the education sector:
-
*Companies and institutions that teach the school curriculum must go non-profit
-
*Such institutions cannot pursue IPOs, or take foreign capital
-
*Listed companies will be prohibited from issuing stock or raising money in capital markets to invest in school-subject tutoring institutions, or acquiring their assets via stock or cash
-
*Foreign firms are banned from acquiring or holding shares in school curriculum tutoring institutions, or using VIEs (variable interest entities) to do so. Those already in violation need to rectify the situation
-
*All vacation and holiday cirriculum tutoring is off-limits
-
*Online tutoring and school-curriculum teaching for kids below six years of age is forbidden
-
*Agencies cannot teach foreign curriculums
The unprecedented regulatory overhaul published on Saturday, threatens to up-end the sector and jeopardize billions of dollars in foreign investment. As previewed yesterday, tutoring companies that teach school subjects can no longer accept overseas investment, which could include capital from the offshore registered entities of Chinese firms; Companies in violation of that rule must take steps to rectify the situation, the country’s most powerful administrative authority said, without elaborating.
Additionally, public tutoring companies will no longer be allowed to raise capital via stock markets to invest in businesses that teach classroom subjects, while outright acquisitions are forbidden; all vacation and weekend tutoring related to the school syllabus is now off-limits. Finally, online tutoring agencies will also be forbidden from accepting pupils under the age of six. To make up for the shortfall, China will improve the quality of state-run online education services and make them free of charge, the State Council said, a good reminder that China is and always will be first and foremost a despotic, communist regime.
“All regions can no longer approve new subject-based off-campus training institutions for students in the compulsory education stage, and existing subject-based training institutions are uniformly registered as non-profit institutions,” according to the State Council notice.
1 year 43 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
My opinion - for what its worth - the direction is good - too bad if all the capitalist money leaves to go promulgate inequalities elsewhere - every child deserves a good education yet at the same time needs to play and have free time to socialize. Globally common sense is in short supply but its refreshing to see good family values once again. The children are our future and as a parent I can say GOOD JOB.
icnif77:
That certainly doesn't happened in China ..., i.e. your described treatment of children as they start with the education.
Granted, Chinese approach to teach kids foreign language at very early age is the best. I mean, learning of the foreign language is the easiest at the earlier age.
But otherwise, kids in China are generally overworked with learning and education, IMO.
Was working in Guizhou at the private High school in 2016/17 and teacher's Board, i.e. owner wanted to terminate the contract because kids were sleeping in the classes.
At my Q "What should I do?", teachers Board demanded I must discipline the kids.
As I explained to them, I am a laowai and don't hold an authority to inflict a penalty to anybody in China and especially not toward the underage Chinese kids, Board didn't agree with me and proceeded with my termination.
After my phone call to Foreign Expert Bureau in Guiyang , kids were permitted to sleep in my classes, and I completed 1-year contract. 
My lessons there usually started with an applause at my entry to the classroom ... I ought to be a movie star in my previous life ... or sumtin'
I wonder how this will play out. I've been hearing training schools aren't too worried about it, I'd have thought it would be a huge problem for them.
Time will tell I suppose.
icnif77:
As the article states, non-profit requirement will suffocate the education industry in China. That's the market trader's perspective ... and charts don't look good ...
Gov.'s reason for non-profit requirement is ... lowering of the families expenditure and next big thing will apparently be to let Chinese families have 3 kids ...
Time will tell ...
At my time in China, I worked steadily with New Oriental Education Group ... what was the great success since I am a non-native Englisher.
New Oriental and English First/Education First required since ever native English passport holder at their English teaching job applications.
I've worked continuously some 6 or 7-years at their Summer camp in and around Nanjing. Students had to fill up the questionnaire at the end of the camp ...
I was asked in May of every year for the confirmation of my attendance in Nanjing,
I'm guessing, that had to be based on the positive reviews I've received from 7-12 years old students.
Pay for the 30-days camp was above .. around 150 Rmb per hour (50' class) with over 120 classes in a month time, full lodging, food and all ... travelling cost to Nanjing and back to my full-time job city ...
That Summer camp was also the main reason I've always worked full-time only at the Public schools ... 'cause I needed a recess in July and August ..
icnif77:
This might be connected, i.e. tit-for-the-tit ... I can't remember the name of the banned Chinese org. at most Western universities ... China-something.
It was banned few months ago in USA first 'cause of the influence and promoting China abroad ... Can't find the name through the search, but it is an org., which was settled at most western unis and some western newspapers ....
Haaa, ..."Confucius Institute"... it was banned or limited few months ago ... everywhere in the western countries with the start of the ban/limitations in USA ...
Now you mention it.. the company I work for has less native English teachers recently. They operate in two campuses of the university and there has been huge fall in teaching staff for the past year. Not sure if the company will hire more new ones or not. Even the HR and the Director of Studies are worried about this.
And Stiggs is right "I wonder how this will play out" and "Time will tell".
Stiggs:
The lack of English teachers is probably more to do with the pandemic and closed borders than anything else.
I don't think this new thing would be a problem for universities, they're not in the after hours tuition business.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
The company I work for also does after hours tuition, not just universities. They recently did summer camp and other stuff with kids
Stiggs:
We're in strange times, I think most schools are trying to stay afloat - not easy when you can't replace your teachers - while waiting to see what happens.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
We indeed are, Stiggs. And many foreign teachers already left our university, I don't think we will get enough to replace them at all. Tough times now
icnif77:
@Stiggs: "You should think, how non-native English teachers (me, he he!) feel at such news now ... "
Finally, novelty of 2017 Chinese Labor law, i.e." ... only native English passport holders ...." was dismantled.
Stiggs:
From what I'm hearing there are a lot of rumors, nobody knows how the law will be interpreted, Chinese parents are calling it stupid and saying everyone will just look for a way to work around it and training schools aren't too worried about it.
So who knows.See what happens I suppose.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
@icnif77 @Stiggs
Do you think the company I work for and other companies will have a meeting about this banning?
Stiggs:
I'm sure every school will be doing what they can to find out how it affects them. I'm just as sure different schools will be getting different answers depending on their province, who they talk to and who they know.
Talk to your school, maybe they know if / how it will affect you.
I was just reading a discussion about this on reddit and it seems to be about what you'd expect. A lot of speculation, guessing, trying to pick apart what they mean by XXXX etc. One guy was saying he had his school closed down effective immediately, others were saying it was apparantly supposed to be rolled out in about 2 or 3 cities initially as some sort of trial.
Again, who knows...see how it plays out.
icnif77:
Companies in China don't matter. It's the 'Law of the Land' as we say ...
Fact is, nobody is able to successfully teach English without the native, foreign English teachers.
They are doing it through EU, but spoken language of English teachers here is no different than any of the native English speakers, i.e. no or only minimal accent.
The other thing is, in EU media is stuffed with English language despite every country in EU speaks different language what you can't say the same for China or Russia.
In Russia, American movie or any foreign movie on the teli is synchronized to Russian, i.e. black American actor speaks Ruski ..., so level of English among the entire population is much lower because there are no or only minimal exposure to the English language.
In China or maybe even in the entire Asia, they won't be able to successfully teach English without the native English teachers.
China would be much better off (... considering the sheer number of English students ..), if native English teachers would teach and coach Chinese English teachers ... butT.., we are confronted with the face culture at this approach, he he.
Stiggs:
I remember when they introduced the social security thing (think it was called that), every foreigner was supposed to put money into a fund for their retirement in China- there was so much wrong with that idea, nobody had any idea what they were supposed to be doing, it was impossible to get any straight answers because no officials knew either, some cities went ahead with it, most didn't and as far as I know it was quietly shelved.
I wouldn't be surprised if this goes the same way.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
@Stiggs
i guess we will have to wait and find out in the coming days on what's the latest update.
Azriaphale760493:
As said above, the parents think it's stupid.
If training centers are banned from teaching kindergarten kids, or the school curriculum, or at weekends, or during vacations... but the demand is still there - well, there will be a lot of illegal schools in apartments again. The parents will pay whatever they want to, they'll find someone to teach what they want their kids to learn. So, big old dumb idea all round.
I'm not sure this will really be implemented, not in the very vague way it's being presented. There is a lot of wiggle room to be changed.
Because if it's implemented in the way it seems written, yeah... parents will just find illegal tutors. Which will explode in their faces when shit starts happening because schools and teachers are outside regulatory control.
As for the legal licensed training centres? Kind of makes a mockery of following the regulations. The illegal schools will flourish, but the legitemate ones will lose their business. Dumb.
I do think there's confusion over the ban on hiring outside foreign tutors. I think this is targetting the online only tutoring, of which they can't really control what is being taught. And THAT's really the point. In China teachers have to abide by Chinese Laws, outside China online tutors... well, they can say anything. We all know the redlines and don't cross them here, because we know what can happen. They don't have that control over outside teachers.
In the end, I think this will really only be attempting to stop the exam-cram schools. Many training centres focus on fun and entertaining learning, and will modify round the regulations. There's always a way to workaround.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
@Arizaphale760493
I don't know how will my manager react about this situation. She has been too busy with doing summer camp with some other foreign teachers and admin staff. Do you think she will be angry considering the ban is going to take place?
Azriaphale760493:
@JohnsonZHANG6868: I'm sure she'll be worried, but until your local Education Bureau anoinces their definitive take on this and produces their regulations, it's all guess work. I'm sure, though, that most training centres will find work arounds, if there are any. If there aren't any, and training centres can't turn a profit being legitimate... yeah, as I said, welcome to the wild wild west again.
See, Beijing institued a ban on early years core subject teaching (no Chinese/Math/English for Kindergarten in outside training schools) but pretty much everyone I've talked to has said the parents just found apartment/back alley schools and, of course, been losing their money and been scammed. It's a bit of a preasure cooker situation.
Not sure how this will play out, but keep your head down, follow regulations for yourself, and make sure your legally employed. That's all us teachers can really do here, just make our income quietly, save for the rainy day, and eyes on the prize of going home (or elsewhere) when it's not worth it anymore.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
@Aziraphale760493
I think some of us are legally employed with possession of working visa. Yet, you are right. She will be worried soon because I recently saw her photos about summer camp and tuition stuff on her WeChat moments, it will be interesting to see who will remind or report her about the banning of this. If that's the case, she should just hold a meeting sooner or later to gather all the foreign teachers in the group chat and how this will effect all of us. We also teach English at university (both campuses), I can't see us hiring more with too many departures. But we will wait and see in the later days on how she reacts. I reckon she will have plenty of nightmares and situations to solve on how this will play out.
Verrick:
The lack of English teachers is certainly due to the pandemic. A lot of public schools have recently begun cutting budgets for foreign teachers. It's not that they can't hire foreigners, it is that they don't want to! There are no jobs in some regions.
I also wouldn't be as bold to state that "Chinese teachers won't be able to successfully teach English". You are under the assumption that their goal is to attain fluency but it isn't. They just want a high gaokao score and the local teachers are better equiped to deal with this.
I can't see a lack of foreign teachers creating issues. Just because someone has a perfect command of English doesn't mean they can teach it. Most foreigners in China are terrible teachers and aren't properly qualified.
JohnsonZHANG6868:
@Verrick
I think you're right. Some of them in the company I work are indeed unqualified. They just want to teach English for few years and then leave. They even usually cause troubles at the university by constantly swearing using inappropriate words directly aiming at students, write bad comments on the attendance sheet about how bad the class is and even drawing a picture of an animal's head or colour the entire "signature" section black of the excel provided by the university. This is completely unacceptable. Even the manager and HR department thinks they're qualified to do this.
Only party members should be able to receive an education
icnif77:
It's called 'guanxi' ...
My Chinese is good ...
I'll never forget 'im-bi', 'niu-bi' und 'sha-bi' 'cause once I had to get coins for the bus and had to reenter the same bank 3 times while holding Mao Tse-Tung 100 RMB note, to yell the right one, and get the change ...
Crackdown in China all over the business place ... not only at the Education sector ...
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/everyone-crosshairs-china-sees-panic-s...
After China implemented a highly publicized crackdown on tutoring and techedu companies, wiping out tens of billions in value as Beijing confirmed it ordered the "for profit" publicly traded sector to, well, no longer be "for profit" while banning them from raising capital or going public - a move which has been viewed as the government’s most extreme step yet to rein in private businesses that regulators blame for exacerbating inequality, increasing financial risk and in the case of some tech titans challenging Beijing’s authority - Beijing has extended its unprecedented crackdown to various other sectors to extend to housing, tech and even food companies.
So after plunging on Friday when the news of the crackdown first hit, on Monday shares of Chinese education stocks listed in the US plunged some more: among the casualties, TAL Education Group tumbled -36%, New Oriental Education & Technology Group was down -32%; Gaotu Techedu - the stock popularized by Archegos whose total return swaps pushed it as high as $149 in January wiping out all the shorts, slumped another -36% and dropped as low as $1,70 this morning while China Online Education Group -11%.
To understand just how unexpected Beijing's crackdown was, consider the following: New Oriental Education & Technology's Hong Kong shares still had 15 analyst buy ratings and just one “underweight” as of Monday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, after plunging more than 40% for a second straight session.
Other major tech and education-linked names were also hit: Alibaba, a Chinese tech conglomerate listed in the U.S. which among other things, invests in education companies, fell -4.9%; Didi Global continued its plunge, down 13% and dropping as low as $7, or half its IPO price of $14; JD.com -6.3%; Baidu -7%; Pinduoduo -13%; NetEase -7.2%; Nio -6.7%; Xpeng -6.4%; Li Auto -4.2% and so on. Today's rout means that the Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index, which slumped last week posting its longest losing streak since 2019 over the risks posed by a potentially widening regulatory crackdown in the nation’s technology industry, is set for even more pain.
... more ...
icnif77:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/530256-china-private-education-non-profit/
China’s hammer blow to private education shows it will do whatever it takes to meet its goals
In a spectacular display of government authority, China has, with the stroke of a pen demolished its $120-billion private education industry by forcing it to reform into a non-profit initiative. The move has cost at least one billionaire his markets fortune.
It follows a number of crackdowns waged by Beijing against various sectors of the economy which were deemed to contravene the national interest. The ruthlessness of such sudden decision-making has undoubtedly shocked Western observers and capitalist advocates, yet its purpose appears to be twofold.
As highlighted by, Beijing is dismantling a sector which is not only exacerbating the inequality of education among rich and poor, but is also increasingly perceived as an obstacle to the country’s fertility rates. So now the hammer has come down on it as a social disruption. It shows that Beijing is prepared to do whatever it takes to meet its national goals, and is another example of how the Chinese Communist Party’s authority has stiffened against the creeping liberalization which the West once welcomed.
Education is of exceptional importance in east Asian societies, and is often considered a determining factor in a family’s status. Parents invest heavily in their children’s future, and as a result the systems in these countries often turn out to be extremely competitive, resulting in an intense commitment towards extra-curricular and out-of-school private study.
... more ...
icnif77:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/chinese-massacre-spreads-bonds-fx-amid-rumors-foreign-liquidations
The rout in Chinese shares, which has demolished the country's tech giants following Beijing’s regulatory crackdown on various sectors, extended into the bond and currency markets Tuesday amid unverified rumors swirled that U.S. funds are offloading China and Hong Kong assets.
2-years old article I came across ...
https://www.studyinternational.com/news/precarious-times-foreign-teacher...
Precarious times for foreign teachers in China
" ... This combination of factors has led to warnings that foreigners must be cautious about moving to live and work in China. As Dan Harris, a Seattle-based lawyer whose firm represents foreign companies who do business in China, explains, “The risks of going to China to teach far outweigh the rewards ..."
icnif77:
Thread's article reposted on Yahoo Finance from Bloomberg ...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-bans-school-curriculum-tutoring-114147251.html
The regulations threaten to obliterate the outsized growth that made stock market darlings of TAL Education Group, New Oriental Education & Technology Group and Gaotu Techedu Inc. They could also put the market largely out of reach of global investors. Education technology had emerged as one of the hottest investment plays in China in recent years, attracting billions from the likes of Tiger Global Management, Temasek Holdings Pte and SoftBank Group Corp.
What Bloomberg Intelligence Says
“Operating losses at New Oriental and TAL can only worsen over the next several years as China overhauls its tutorial industry. Cost cuts won’t keep pace with revenue declines in the short term as the government, with the stated goal of lightening students’ workload, banned for-profit school tutoring as well as holiday and weekend lessons.”
-- Catherine Lim, Bloomberg Intelligence
for boosting of the energy levels ...
"nzteacher80:
icnif is from Eastern Europe. His last name probably looks like a WiFi password." 
