this article highlights the possible dangers of
working for crappy training centres in China......
United English, an English language training company in Beijing, cleared out its two learning
centers and disappeared overnight on December 18.

The market for English language training in China is quickly diminishing.

The government doesn't trust Western education programs and Western educators.

The GaoKao is ending its English requirement.

Overseas education for Chinese students is losing its cachet as Chinese corporations no longer pay a premium for overseas university graduates.

It is becoming common knowledge among the Chinese middle and upper classes that to attend most Western universities a student merely needs money, not ability. In fact, it is precisely the rich students that do poorly on the GaoKao that are going overseas. At one time, rich Chinese parents would brag about their children going to the University of South Dakota, now only the new middle class are unaware that it is a waste of money.

In Beijing and Shanghai, because of scandals, parents have discovered that the 'Foreign Teachers' that are paraded in the private schools are not actual teachers.

My students who have graduated as English Majors in China, attended 'graduate' programs in England and Canada and Australia and the U.S., have returned and are hunting for jobs with their 'graduate degrees'. Now $60,000 dollars poorer, they are happy to take the same jobs they could have gotten with a Chinese undergraduate degree.

Granted: they have improved their oral language skills and have had a wonderful year of travel overseas. But they could have accomplished both with a backpack and tourist visa for 1/3 the money.

The large chains, New Oriental et al, will survive by draining the smaller private schools of students in a classic industry consolidation.

University English departments are not immune. One University I taught for had 223 English major freshman in 2011; this year they have 100.