sorry your wrong.. many agents mislead you. I know of act that many colleges and uni put their own ad on sites like Dave's , esl china , they also want to avoid agents. Agents charge the schools about 6000 rmb per teacher they introduce. When your emailing a person in China about a job, the first question to ask is, are they an agent or do they work directly for the school ? If they claim the school, ask them to show their school ID card.. yes, scan and send to me .. Then go onto the schools website and see if the schools name is the same, if the ID card is ONLY in Chinese ( 99% it will be ) email to me, I'll have my student check it

Thank you. What I'm most concerned with is this- I've seen dozens of posts on these threads maintaining you shouldn't work for a crappy Centre, private school and it's better to accept less money and work for a state middle school; however, I have never come across a state middle school in China which employs FT's directly-can you name one? If you want to work in a middle school you will have to seek employment with the likes of (to give an example) arch-baddy like Yuncheng IELTS.

It's all good assertive stuff to suggest to newbie want to be teachers that they should ask foreign employers for this or that proof but it's a big ask, many of them are only just adults, 22 year olds-you can even put a good school off if they think you too bolshy.

It's not just in China that large sums of money are diverted to pay bloody agent, the Chinese learned it all from us. I know there was a time in the UK when if you wanted a job you could apply directly to the company but now that is becoming rare-even if you want a position cleaning the toilets there'll be some agent wanting his slice of the cake. Agents are a fact of life and if you are a newbie teacher it could take you a very long time to find a job in China if you refuse to use one.

Do you know of a Chinese middle school which is able or willing to employ you directly? I know that universities will do but they also use agents.