"I agree. And all FT's should avoid helping these amoral places make a profit by only dealing directly with public/middle/high schools and colleges. Cutting out recruiters and training centres is definitely the best option in China, they are all unreliable and greedy and will mess up your visa while they are counting the cash...pathetic people!"

That's more like it, Bullring, you are entering an enlightened period in your life.

However, the rub is, even if you do teach at a Middle School or Normal School in China your actual employer is likely to be an unwholesome teacher supply agency (often call themselves schools) which are equally notorious in the treatment they hand out to FT's at private schools/training centres. Not many middle schools have the wherewithal and the inclination (or even authority) to employ you directly. Universities do so but even them not always-I even know some universities who dabble in private offshoots themselves [or their leaders do] Who gives you your pay cheque?

I think all we can hope for is to do a bit of weeding now and then when we find a really outrageous example like York School or Yuncheng IELTS, the latter being a supplier of teachers to many middle schools in Shanxi Province-be just as well off under York's warm embrace as to go there.

So, it's not just a question of where you work but who the puppet master is.