Yes, it's true that many so called "International Departments and/or colleges" are illegally granted permission to label themselves as a part of a certain university. In fact, by law, a private college cannot be run on the grounds of a public university. But it still happens - the power of guanxi. However, simply because a college has used a kind of influence or even downright bribery to position itself in such a way, it does not necessarily follow that they will provide inadequate education to their students or that foreign teachers in their employ will not be treated well or will be asked to cheat the system for the benefit of students. Some do, some don't.

Something else to realize is that there are many gray areas in terms of the education system in China; especially when it comes to English language training. Basically, it's a work in progress and many of the so called rules or regulations are open to interpretation.

Just as a quick aside to all of this, I think that after the Olympics have been held we will see some extreme changes in the whole EFL landscape here. One reason for that is that there are going to be a whole lot of people scratching their heads and asking themselves why they had bothered to study English in the first place. Look at all the students who have studied just for the specific reason of working for the Olympics in Beijing or Qingdao. What are they going to do post-Olympics? And then there is the very real fact of hundreds of thousands of college graduates unable to find employment - regardless of their English skills or absence thereof. Ultimately, the whole EFL thing will have to be streamlined and once the Olympic frenzy dies down, I think there will be more focus put on that. One consequence of this will be that only truly qualified teachers will be asked to stay in China or to come to China. The other consequence is that the private sector will be more strictly monitored. This is my hope anyway - I could be well off the mark.

I think the main reason that we're having this discussion, though, is that we seem to have a fundamental difference in the way we view this situation. I'm not overly concerned with the fact that the rules/regulations are ambiguous. What concerns me most is the students. If there's a certain amount of ambiguity, I'm ok with that as long as the students are taught well and the teacher is not lied to or cheated in any way.

Teachers who sign contracts from home and find themselves employed by illegal "International Colleges" or find that they have been communicating with illegal International Departments shouldn't believe for a moment that they are obligated to honor any contractual agreement entered into with said parties. Many contracts in China are not worth the paper they're printed on anyway. Furthermore, they are designed to protect the employer not the employee. Moreover, it is my opinion that one should first travel to China on a tourist visa and thoroughly check out the situation before making a decision to sign a contract. I realize that this goes against what most people are told, but I stand firm on this. I believe a lot of problems could be avoided this way and that there would be far fewer reasons to whine about EFL jobs in China if more people aligned themselves with that kind of thinking. It seems though that many teachers come to China under a concept of "good faith" that, well, doesn't quite apply here.

So it all comes back to what I and others keep saying and keep writing - make informed decisions. I doubt that many people walk into positions back home without a thorough understanding of the situation. Why should it be any different here? Yeah, I know, things still go wrong and things are not always as they appear. But again, that's life.

And as for making informed decisions. I'm glad that there are posters such as yourself that are capable of outlining the facts from a fairly unemotional position without resorting to China bashing in the process.