I hope they are. Aside from the Teach Abroad forum, there is a wealth of advice and support for teachers on there particularly in the Wellbeing forum - I've seen posts in there from teachers literally on the edge where the support given has helped pull them back. For that reason alone I hope they return.

Short answer - as an international teacher, he has little rights and protections, especially in the ME. If the school is insisting he teach, yet he is medically unable to do so, then yes they may choose to fire him as a result (though personally, if I were him, I'd do the minimum I had to until I got out of hospital, before disappearing out of the country rather than returning to school.)

He can also name the school on the ISR discussion board about this - and, I think, in this forum too.

[quote=Smokegreynblues post_id=60471 time=1609689348 user_id=246004]
469,000 US teachers were laid off in 2020 according to Reuters. I do believe this year might be the most competitive/worst for recruitment when it comes to competition. Search alone has 1000+ candidates, for a few hundred positions.
[/quote]

I wonder though whether this might actually not be as bad as it seems (for those already overseas) - essentially, what you could have is a load of teachers without international experience trying to get a job somewhere. If I was a headteacher, and I saw those, I would be wondering exactly why that person was seeking a move - is it because they want to move abroad, or just because they need a job? How are they likely to adjust if they were to move to, say, China, and find out they can't go home because of COVID for two years? Someone who has been around a bit internationally might already have the resilience to do this, while a new international teacher might run within the year.

Nope, I don't think you're making a mistake. Basically, the problem with China is getting back in! I'm presuming that your school was not in Beijing or Shanghai, and this is why returning became difficult.

What you will return as, is a teacher who can teach English, Maths and Business - which is likely to be appealing, even given your lack of experience, particularly in the Tier 2 schools. It's likely that there will still be vacancies later in the school year, but if I were in your position I'd just get started applying now - particularly as it gives you longer to get the visa sorted. You might also even manage to get a school who can sort your visa and get you back in now (COVID restrictions allowing) ahead of the new school year.

My contract states my salary in the currency of my location, but I choose to have mine sent to my home account in the Eurozone. Mainly, this is because this is where my main expenditure is on mortgages etc rather than in the UK, but I could choose to have it sent there (and have done in the past.)

When I was in Egypt, we were paid 75% in Sterling and 25% in LE. That was fine because we could live quite comfortably on the LE alone, and were more than quids in when the LE had a massive devaluation in 201 (from 10LE-£1 to 21LE - £1).

Pre-teaching, I had this in a job which I'd applied for and really wanted, and about a year later when another vacancy came up the manager phoned me directly and asked me to apply (not surprisingly, I got the job.)

It's going to depend on the person. However, I'd say that if you'd got to the second or final round, there'd be a better chance of you being remembered than in the first sift of interviews.

I'm gonna lob an idea in here.

So you currently teach English, because that's where your degree is, but want to move to ICT. I'm going to suggest another option....

1. Get a job with a T3 English curriculum school, and get your PGCEi. Some schools are better than others at supporting students through this, so be aware that they might not provide support and/or funding which you might expect.

2. Consider primary / elementary teaching. That way, the degree doesn't matter so much (except in ME) and after a year or two as a class teacher you could look to specialize in ICT.

3. Stick with MS/HS/Secondary English, but seek out roles as 'ICT Champion' and the like. Look to get involved in the development of educational technology in the school, and seek jobs on that basis. Quite a few schools are looking at this.

And PS - hope you have named the school in an appropriate review.....

Just a suggestion on your storage - could you ship what you can, and maybe sell on the electronics? There is usually an exemption for personal use electronics, although you might be subject to duty in the country you are shipping to.

Just a thought….

I wonder if you could contact the school where you are applying just now, and ask if the reference could be taken after interview or if they would accept it with a delay - if you explain the situation to them and that your head is busy setting up online learning again, a reasonable person would understand that (and I'd wonder whether I'd want to work there if they didn't accept that as a good reason!)

Good point on the customer service. Express stopped working while I was in quarantine, but they were able to help me get it fixed.

The Certificate in Teaching and Learning basically covers the Cat 1 training for most subjects.

Did it, paid for it, got taught lots of stuff I already knew. Very expensive piece of paper.

Nord VPN and Express for me.

An interesting thing will be to see how schools in other countries in Asia respond to this. There is the potential that they might end up being able to lure the best teachers away from China, so schools in China have to increase salaries to attract staff (and, consequently, increase fees.) With these communication is important so it would be good to see schools explaining why they have had to increase fees!

Yes, we got that announcement too.

One way around the housing allowance is for the school to actually own the apartments. Then it's not a taxable benefit (at least, this was the case when the plans were announced a couple of years ago) because there's no cash being paid. I know some schools were looking into whether this would be a possibility.

With health insurance - health insurance in China is actually relatively pricey (I'm around 2000RMB per month.) So the tax impact of this could be quite significant.


I can't see that there'd be a way around fees - at least, until the influential parents realise that their kids' favourite teachers are leaving because they can't afford the tax on the school fees, and kick up with the authorities. Also, there is already a discrepancy between staff who have kids and those who don't - this will make it worse, because if the school has to work out how to increase salaries to cover this they will have to think about the effect it will have on others.


One other thought - staff kids are notionally charged fees because they take up a place which could otherwise be given to a fee paying student. What if the school then groups staff kids as 'supernumary' and doesn't count them in the official numbers? So, for example, if there were 100 students in Y7, and two staff arrived making 102 students, could the official number still be 100?