Public School Teaching Jobs in China
The Chinese government has de-centralized public schools and has put forth general curriculum outcomes that all schools have to meet. How these schools get to that end point is entirely up to them which makes for differences in schools located in the same city.
The common thread here is that all schools want a Western English teacher. Some public schools will share teachers, some will have their own in-house programs where they directly employ their own foreign teachers, some will have programs that piggyback on their existing English programs and offer additional classes to students (that they have to pay for). There are many other options and ways public schools operate. The interesting thing here is that if every public school teacher in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand came to China to teach English they wouldn't even come close to having enough teachers for the English classes in China.
Check out our Education in China section to learn more about the incredible capacity of the Chinese Education system. Imagine over 110,000 KINDERGARTENS with enrollments of over 20,000,000 students (20 million!). If you said you wanted 40 students to 1 teacher that would still be 500,000 teachers. Remembering that this is for ONE AGE GROUP.
The national statistics agency for Canada reports that in Canada in 2007 we had a total of 1,078,856 in Employment, educational and related services.
With the need for teachers this great it should be a cake walk to find a job... One would think so and for the most part that is completely true. Finding a teaching job in a public school in China is simple. Finding one that pays you on time and provides medical and can talk to you about tax situations and implications and one that will pick you up at the airport and assist you with setting yourself up and all these important factors that contribute to your overall experience - now this can be a challenge. This is where Footprints comes in. All our schools will do all those things listed there and more.
