Watch out everyone as they advertise around. GAC center in Qingdao/Dalian China is now advertising AGAIN. They've advertised about 6 times in just about 9 months and 3 times in past 4 months only. Also, at the same time, they've been advertising for DoSs, not only the teachers which raises suspicions of their poor management practices and a high turnover of foreign experts there.

Now, I have reasons to believe the GAC centers around China are bogus companies in business to ship the filthy rich parents' spoiled kids abroad as, from my experience, none of the centers that I have worked at has cared about the students' academic progress or in class participation. Further more, my recent correspondance with the person in charge, the head of the ACT that owns this GAC operations, indicates that these GAC centers are not under his/the ACT-GAC management at all. Moreover, I have some evidence that their faulty academic material is MADE IN CHINA, not as "foreign" as advertised which is seemingly their selling point too.

Here, a link to the company's advertisement on their product
http://www.actinternationalservices.com/en/aesl/index.html
suggests that students are to join western unis out of this program but the American owner, the ACT, has taken the business into its own hands and begun promoting ONLY the US unis instead of all the unis around the world.

out of the above link:
ACT Education Solutions, Limited helps international studentsparticularly those for whom English is not a first languageprepare for study at English-speaking universities around the world.

a lie as the ACT entry exam at the centers where i've worked at is a selling point and a draw for the filthy rich Chinese

out of the above link:
Global Assessment Certificate (GAC)a university preparation program, taught and evaluated in English. The program gives international students the skills they need to enroll in and succeed at English-speaking colleges and universities. Growing rapidly, the program is currently offered at over 60 locations in 12 countries.

this GAC is a piece of paper cert that even the ones that do not successfully graduate get. note that, NEITHER the students' visas NOR the applications to the unis usually depend on this graduation course.

out of the link above:
ACT's English Proficiency Program (EPP)an academically oriented English language program designed to prepare students for further studies in English, including the Global Assessment Certificate (GAC) program. It has a balanced focus on the key language skillsreading, writing, listening, and speakingas well as a strong grounding in grammar and pronunciation.

this is supposed to mislead as the actual ACT is an entry exam to American colleges that is actually not completely legal on mainland. the central government has not allowed it and issued a warning a few times in past 5 years (even to the HQ of this company in Shanghai). Never mind the repeating of GAC-ACT pitch in both quotes above.

out of the link above:
International Targeted Admissions Profiler (iTAP)an independent, targeted international student recruitment database that is available to English language higher education institutions that become Pathway Universities for GAC graduates.

The iTAP is managed completely by the Chinese centers' administrators and owners and so the students' scores entered in are often higher than the scores the actual foreign facilitators (considered experts) award. In China, the Shanghai's HQ is managed solely by the Chinese that claim they act on behalf of the foreign company. However, I have not observed exactly that throughout my 4 and a half years with the company on mainland. Rememeber that there is an initial fee the center pays and then there's a royalty fee every center pays for individual students it has singed in.

So, "the other site" for teachers and employers that has recently got into sponsoring some companies, has also been advertising for this one
http://www.eslcafe.com/jobs/china/index.cgi?read=20853

Cheers and beers to the few good teaching jobs that are left out there :)

[Edited by Administrator (admin) Sat, 14 May 2011, 03:51 AM]