This is I hope an impartial review of the Korea International School in Shenzhen,
The school is located in Baoan close to the airport. It is adjacent to the Oriental school from which it leases a portion of their school.
The closest town is Xingwei about 2 minutes by bus.
From Futian there is the 305 bus which goes to Tao Yuan Ju about 1 hour travel time through the Nantou check point. From there take a small mini bus 776 which goes directly to the school. About 15 minutes travel time in normal traffic.
The organisation of the school is as follows. A Chairman (name unknown)
board of directors, director Mr Li, Principal Mr Soon, Vice Principal Mr Park.
There are 3 teaching departments, Chinese, Korean and English. Head teacher for the Chinese department is Miss Park and Head teacher for Korean and English department is Mr Park.
The man responsible for foreign affairs at least visas is Mr Jimmy Ling.
The teaching staff are very friendly as are the students but the adminstration although friendly are not as efficient as is necessary.
There are approximately 80-100 students in the following class groups.
E1 - E6. elementary
M1 - M3 middleschool
H1 - H3 highschool. The highschool is broken up in to 3 groups.
CH 1, 2, 3. Students concentrating on learning Chinese
KH 1, 2, 3. Korean
EH 1, 2, 3 English.

The English students study a range of subjects including English, Maths, Science, History, SAT, TEFOL, Speech and drama.

Cuurently there are 8 foreign teachers (there were 9 but I left after 2 weeks). 3 from the Phillipines, 2 from Spain, 2 from the US and 1 from Britain.

There are also about a dozen or so chinese teachers and the same amount of Korean teachers.

The school cafe serves Korean food 3 meals a day.

The school facilities are slightly limiting but sufficient. There is a DVD room, a 20 computer room. The teaching office has about 5 computers accessible to both Chinese and English teachers but the computers all use Korean or Chinese XP. No English versions are available.
There is a small library contain mostly Korean books and a few English books mainly about computers and some fiction.
There is a small basket ball court but no grass area or football field.
There are 2 school mini buses that pick up the students who live outside the school which the teachers can ride for free if they live near or can get to where the school bus goes. Teachers usually arrive around 7.30am and the last class finishes at 5.00pm. Teachers are expected to remain at school at least til 5. Usually the teachers eat dinner with the students at 5 and the go home on the school buses which leave around 6pm.
All teachers are required to sign in when they arrive in the morning.
There are 8 periods per day. 4 til lunch and 4 after lunch til 5.
Class periods are 50 minutes starting on the hour from 8am.
The contract includes half day Saturdays but the foreign teachers (Except the Phillipine Teachers) dont work Satudays unless there is exam prep or sometihing special.
The salary is 12000 per month. The school does not provide accommodation and the allowance is part of the monthly salary.
The school meals are free.
The school does organise work visa's and we had to fight to get the school to pay for the medical exam. This is 480RMB and is done at the Huanggang Port hospital. It takes about 1 hour.
Now for the good stuff.
Many of the students level of English is quite high especially E6, M3 and EH
It is considerably higher then Chinese and Korean teachers and especially the administration.
They are very bright and eager to learn and it is a shame that the school does not have the capacity or inclination to provide for them so they have become dispondent.
This term the school did provide text books but they are below many of the students abilities and there were not enough for everyone. For those that use the teaching editions there were not enough.
The administration staff speak little or no English so communication is difficult and many times pointless.
Despite being called an international school there is little to show it. The school routine and dialogue is always in Korean. There is very little assistance for the foreign teachers in regard to discussion and there is at best a casual curriculum.
All so called teachers meetings focused on the Korean aspect to the Korean teachers. As all teachers are in the same office the English teachers had to shut up while the teachers meetings in Korean were held.
When we organised our own English teachers meetings to discuss certain concerns we were accused of subversion.
English teachers were just given directives without any room for discussion. Basically there is no avenue for the English teachers to discuss their concerns because the adminstration doesnt speak English. Mr Park who has assumed control of the English department speaks limited English and having no real authority can do little. The power on the ground is the principal. He runs a tolatarian regime and is absolute.
A man of 71 years we use to joke that he was really North Korean because of the way he excercises authority over everyone especially the students. Most of the students do not like him and all want to leave the school. Having spoken to many of them as well as students who moved to other schools he is the main reason they either left or will leave at the end of this term. Basically they are afraid of him. He yells at them, makes them sing some sort of school song if they do the slightest thing wrong. Yells out the window from the 4th floor at them.
The students call the school KIS jail because they have no freedom and little rights. They cant go out even when I volunteered to take them to the local town with some other teachers. There are no activities for them in the school, no sports except taekwondo. No soccer field, they cannot associate with the chinese students in the school across form KIS. No after school activites. apparently they are allowed to go under escort to Walmart in Baoan every fortnight to practice their Chinese.
Even though the school admits that the English department plays a central role in this so called international school basically the only "international"
are the presence of the foreign teachers. The school hired an English speaking Korean(the one who hired me) who was very forward in his thinking and wanted to make sweeping changes to promote a proper international school and he lasted 1 day. They got rid of him after he hired 3 of the four native english speakers. His idea's were to radical.
I became friends with him but the school (Mr Park) told me after seeing me having dinnner with him one night in town that I was not to have any more contact with him or I would suffer the same fate. I believed that the school had no right to dictate to me what I did on my own time outside the school but he said it was school policy so when I have to choose between my friends and my job - the job loses.
The students parents pay around 20,000US per year to go to this school because they are told that it is an international school with all that it entails only to find that they could have gotten the same type of treatment at their own schools in Korea - for free.
Many of the students will leave to go to other schools such as SIS, QSI and some Chinese schools.
I suppose I personally would expect this from some Chinese schools given their limited experience with foreigners but for a Korean school to do this seems to be extremely negligent if not worse.
The students and their parents have high hopes when going to schools such as this and it saddens me that the school is unable or unwilling to
to do more then make empty promises. I wonder if this is a syndrome unique to China as Ive also meet some foreigners who also do this??
For me this school talks the talk but definitely doesnt walk the walk.
Rating 3/10