Greetings fellow ESL teachers. This is a warning so you don’t waste your time or energy to relocate and try to work with a school that looks good from the outside, but is not only poorly organized and autocratic, but also WORKS ILLEGALLY.

I am happy that I left GPEX/ ITP Edu (a language school that works in high schools) when I did. Before discussing their illegal actions, one thing worth noting is that while the local teachers there and all other foreigner teachers dressed professionally as teachers should, there was one white South African female teacher who consistently went to teach at the same high school as the other teachers wearing a t-shirt, tights, and slippers! She actually embarrassed me as I was working with the same school. Somehow that never fazed the management (perhaps in the same way that they were never bothered or too cheap to put toilet paper in the washrooms).

Shortly after a few weeks of signing the standard contract that we agreed on, I was asked to sign another clause or contract “that’s just an extra one”. However, I couldn’t take this contract home to read it over or make a copy. This one said that I was HR staff! Clearly they were evading taxes with having foreign teachers. I asked my (foreigner) manager about it, and he couldn’t give a straight answer (no he wasn’t gay). I asked some of the local teachers there, and they didn’t say much to me, although I think they might have spoken to local management.

Typical to Asian styles of communication, they were not transparent about changes in my pay, and a few weeks later when I asked my boss about the amount being paid to me that day, he acted insulted that I would ask. The school then used this as fodder to make a case of me being “disrespectful”, but it was my questioning around the fake contract that they were afraid of, so they made up some b*s notion that I disrespected them and asked me to leave.

In a nutshell, the local staff there are almost ALL RELATED to the boss, and they do almost nothing to assist when you ask, but are quick to critique you when you are trying to get things done. Their communication within the staff is deplorable for a school. Not to mention that the main school that they work with has many issues that makes teaching those kids a nightmare. And last, the boss might present himself well as a foreigner that’s on your side, but when push comes to shove, he is just a puppet, so after giving your feedback, gripes and suggestions, nothing changes. He also doesn’t do too much in way of team building. I would say that the most positive thing about working there was the very pleasant, punctual and cheery driver we had.