KJK
- 2009-06-26
I once worked at this school in Yinchuan and I posted my experience here aprx. two years ago. I see that the school still uses the same MO with its staff. From the time you first talk with John Zhong the owner and then the underlings all you get fed is lies. Shortly after I left them in 07 Yinchuan Cambridge English School changed its name to Ningxia Ruizhi Education Group but that is all that was changed within the organization.
There was no need to you to Sign two contract to make up to the 6000 yuan that they said that the school would pay you there, Dragonized. I was working there for 6000 yuan when I was there and I was given my copy right after I signed it and it was stamped with the school stamp. One reason that the school wants you to sign two contracts is to avoid paying taxes. They were reported and found out not to be paying my taxes when I was there teaching. I guess they had to pay hush money to a second person in the tax department.
I was told when I was there to do recordings for the new books/tapes that the school was working on when I was there and I too was offered "royalties". When I asked what the amount of royalties would be I never got an answer. I would never do recordings for any school there in China.
I see that Cooper is back working there at the school. I was told when I was there in Yinchuan last month that he left but he might of been working at on of the other projects that the school has going on there in Yinchuan. He is on of those special people that really believes the lies that he tells you and he can not understand why you get upset with the school when they try their tricks out on you..
As for the working hours/days there at Yinchuan Cambridge, the hours/days that you are told to work change at the whim of the head master or vice head masters such as Cooper. You might even have to stay over night and sleep in a classroom if you are sent out to one of the small towns that the school has a wee campus at if you have missed the last bus back to Yinchuan. That did happen to one of the Filipino teachers one weekend right after I left the school. This school really takes care of you!
I never had any problem with getting books from the school but most of the students where in a level too high for their English level. So it was frustrating when I would go to teach a class and the students did not know the material from the book that they were taught last term. Don`t you just love the bouncing around the city to teach your classes?
When I went to work for them, they had a month to secure me an apartment but were not able to find me anything but a flea bitten dive. So I had to find my own apartment and then they tried to get me to sign the lease for it! No way buddy as I knew that the school tried this with the previous foreign teacher.
The school last year was warned by the FE Dept. to improve on the treatment towards their foreign teachers as some of the Filipino teachers went to the FE Dept with some complaints. So if you run into this problem again go to the FE Dept.
Sadly this is common story about too many schools and its foreign teacher. Report these schools to web sites like this on, Dave's ESL etc. Warn as many people as you can about these schools.
This school's parent company is called Ningxia Ruizhi Education Group.
This is by far the worst school that I have ever worked at. They start the day by lying, then end the day by lying. Any contract signed with this school should be considered void considering the crap that they have pulled. I worked there for a month from March to April. Heres a rundown of what happened in my short time there.
1. The boss tells one of his newer workers to deal with me over the phone by promising a salary of 6000 rmb per month. However when I get there I am notified that I am to be placed under a four day probation period where I will be paid 100rmb per day. This guys name is John or Jon Zhang. He then goes on and makes the FIRST LIE and states that the Foreign Affairs Bureau in Ningxia will only give a salary of 4500 max, but I can sign two contracts. Well I end up signing two copies of each (4 total) but then they take all four away. When I ask about what is going on John or one of his lackeys then told me that I will have a second copy of the 4500rmb contract issued to me by the Foreign Experts Bureau. I go on for the next month asking him or his second in command (Cooper) as well as a mini-leader with a little bit of power in the company named Martin. But I keep on getting the runaround that I will get a copy of the contract later on.
2. Lie 2: Cooper decides to ask me if I could do some recordings. When I ask him for how long he states Maybe a couple of hours. But for the next week I am asked to do this for a total of like 12 hours. I made about 10 tapes. Cooper also stated that John will promise royalties but of course that later gets pushed under the rug as well.
3. I read the contract which promised 2 days off a week. But I worked for 10 straight days when I first got there! Doing promotional work such as cram classes for their Provincial wide English competition sponsored by this school on my days off were a regular occurrence. Needless to say those tapes I made with another teacher were also sold to the 600 students (at least) en masse and the boss made a decent killing. This is Lie 3 of course.
4. Lie 4: By the regulations of the Foreign Experts Bureaus if you get a work visa for one place you should just stay in that place unless stated otherwise. I wasnt aware of this and the school made me go to ShiZuiShan City and YanChi village which was in the same province but well off of the administrative districts of YinChuan. If you check the map of Ningxia Province youll see what I mean.
5. Lie 5: Promise of necessary teaching materials as well as preparation. What I mean by this is that the school is supposed to give YOU the books as well as show you how to prepare the classes. Well I was NEVER given my own set of books. I had to wing it every time I went to the teachers classrooms by borrowing the book from the Chinese teacher. How the system works in this case is that Yinchuan Cambridge English has 30 branched in the same province, and 17 in YinChuan alone. The school will only reimburse you for your taxi fare for the FIRST time in which you go to the branch of the school. I was going to as many as 3 different branches per day. Except for the 2 hour kindergarten class that I taught from Tuesday to Thursday every morning for 2 hours I NEVER taught the same classes for 2 STRAIGHT WEEKS! I must have taught 700 students (Im not kidding you) in the one month and ten days I worked there.
6. Lie 6: The boss called me into his office and asked me to do a personal favor for him. Although his wife and kid were in ShenZhen he apparently decided that the apartment he lived in wasnt big enough or something to share with his father-in-law. He told me if his wifes dad(supposedly) could stay with me for a few days. Since my z visa was still being processed and I had heard about the threats they made towards teachers I wasnt exactly emboldened to say no. Well this old man stayed with me for well over a week. I thought contracts with ESL teachers guaranteed separate apartments!
Now that were done going over the lies. Lets go over the threats.
I was told by a colleague that threats against foreign teachers were quite common. Teachers are threatened with deportation if they refused to renew their contracts. They are threatened with being blacklisted. Supposedly Martin does most of this threatening. He will get a little to personal and scrutinize the details of your teachings and make trivial matters sound bad. You would have to follow everything his way to please him. He also isnt beyond making personally insulting remarks. When I first got there he bragged to me that he was stronger than me because he outweighed me by 1 kilo but after I gained some weight he remarked that I was too fat and he was thinner. He also likes to bellow out loud songs which sound terrible in the office environment but nobody tells him to shutup because of his apparent stature as an organizer of some sort in the company.
Summary: This company is an example of the ESL landscape in China. Its like a land of rotten weed where if you look with a microscope (or more like a digital satellite scope) you might find a couple of roses. These schools are more emboldened to act corrupt, bullish, and downright rotten if they CAN get you a z-visa than if they cant sometimes. As for the contracts since they refused to provide me with one by law that company has engaged in illegal acts which violate the labor law and therefore any of the requirements that they expect from me is null and void. Dont forget two parties have to sign the contract! If either one violates the terms the other one can terminate the contract(for all you corrupt corporate ESL ppl, Im NOT sorry for bursting your bubble). The boss is always out for half a month on his trips for business or for family. He leaves duties to his lackeys who then bully you and make you do extra work. I was even told that the best way to cope with this kind of working environment is Dont complain! Theyre all about shoving things under the rug and denying, denying, denying.
What I did: I worked until mid-April except they still hadnt paid me my monthly salary yet. I told them I needed a week off and had to borrow 2000 yuan for a trip. I left the next day and never looked back.