When it comes to Chinese English Schools, the bottom of the barrel is a pretty black place indeed. It sounds like this is precisely where you got sent, George, and I am truly sorry to hear it.

The solution lies in getting the word out, so I hope you are making a lot of noise.
This is a great site, and I hope you're on all the other "Good Guys" web sites with this story: English School Watch (http://www.englishschoolwatch.org), TESall (http://www.tesall.com), Nate's China School Review (http://www.chinaschoolreview.net), and Raoul's China School Review (http://chinateachers.proboards17.com) You might also try getting a voice on That's Guangzhou and China Daily's online versions.

Good Luck!

Robin, I understand your logic and the benefits you seek, but I personally have never encountered schools that would ever send an air ticket in advance to prospective foreign teachers! I gather you've found at least a few?

The reason for the reluctance is that too many teachers take contracts to work abroad, and then for some reason never appear for work. I myself have made a few airport trips to pick up a new teacher that wasn't on the plane... If schools did this, they'd be sending out thousands of dollars a year worth of tickets out for nothing.

The standard practice in China is a mid-year and/or year-end reimbursement of airfare. There's a new trend that's pretty disturbing...what you get is an "allowance", not a "reimbursement"...and of course these allowances don't cover the round-trip costs of your flights. Please don't be silly enough to take these deals!

I would advise anyone to turn down most jobs that don't come with full airfare reimbursements, including for teachers already staying here in China. But I feel that telling people to insist on incoming airfare in advance will cause a lot of people to not get some pretty good jobs over a point that most school owners simply aren't going to negotiate.