Pulling a “Midnight Run.”

“Midnight runners” are teachers who leave their schools without notice, often, literally, in the middle of the night.

No two runners will have the same story. Many claim they left their schools due to unpaid wages, impossible working conditions, employer contract breaches, etc.

Some runners however, leave simply to escape responsibility.

Now that the Foreign Residence Permit has become part of a teacher’s passport, it is less easy to simply walk away from a school. Remember, the PSB keeps records of your employment in their database. They are particularly interested in cases where a teacher left a school with more than thirty days validity on the FRP.

Even if you do go to Hong Kong and get a new Visa, and obtain new legal employment, it is possible you may be asked to explain the circumstances where you left a school without properly closing out your FRP. It is possible you may be fined.

It is strongly recommended that you try to resolve disputes with your school in a professional manner. Document your case and seek assistance from the local or regional PSB or ask for SAFEA arbitration instead of simply packing it up.

What is the SAFEA?

The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs (SAFEA) is authorized by the State Council. SAFEA’s main functions include:

“Designing the development strategy of foreign intellectual resources introduction, studying and formulating relevant policies, rules and regulations, approving plans of ministries and local governments for inviting foreign experts and overseas training programmes, and supervising their implementation; formulating, improving and supervising standards and the administration concerning foreign experts working in China, and overseas training of Chinese.” [SAFEA web site]

SAFEA is responsible for licensing schools that hire foreigners. Obtaining a proper SAFEA license to hire foreigners is a long and nontrivial process. It requires numerous on-site inspections. Many schools in China are not in fact SAFEA licensed. For this reason they ask teachers to teach on F Visas, (business visas) or worse, L Visas, (Tourist Visas) instead of obtaining the correct Z Visa. No matter what people tell you , this is not a legal practice.

Regardless of the “Everybody does it.” mentality, you lose important protections when you work illegally. Consider this, if you have a serious dispute with your school and need to go to the authorities, do you want the first item established to be that you are an illegal worker? How strong does that make your case?

Make sure that the school hiring you is licensed to hire foreigners. Ask them directly if you will be working on an F visa. Don’t fall for the line that you can work on an F visa as a visiting “lecturer”. If you are teaching and being paid for teaching services, you need a Z Visa, which must be used to obtain a FRP (Foreign Residence Permit) within 30 days.

There are numerous posters, posing as being knowledgeable, but in actuality serve as ex-officio “Ministers of Disinformation” on the various ESL forums. Anecdotal and third-hand hearsay is what they usually offer. Ask them how many visas they have personally processed, working directly with the PSB.

China has uniform laws which are often not uniformly enforced. What may seem “legal enough” today, may be utterly illegal tomorrow. Local officials change, headmasters and school owners change, and enforcement focus changes. Your safest bet is to ensure you are working on the proper documents.

Summer and Winter Camps (Day Classes)

Twice a year, our school offers Summer and Winter Camps (day classes) for a four week period. These classes are taught during the day in addition to our normal evening and weekend classes. To see a graph showing our weekly teaching/holiday schedules, please click here.

It’s a busy period but the results are well worth it; the students love the classes and you can see the improvement in their English all during the rest of the year.

We don’t teach traditional curriculum during these periods. We focus on soft skills, science, nature, and craft activities.

Students spend all year in a competitive environment. Our first days in camp are spent learning how to be good citizens, cooperative, imaginative and considerate. We expose them to western culture, science, nature, history and other subjects not normally taught in training schools. We also do a lot of hands on craft activities.

Our camps are usually quite popular with students and often sell out all the seats a month before class begins.

We will typically teach between eighty and one hundred lesson plans during this period. All lesson plans and materials are provided to the teachers.

Holidays

You will receive approximately 42 days holiday/vacation time each year in our school.

Like all schools, we adjust our holiday schedules according to those of the local region. The holidays are at somewhat fixed times. The local government or educational agency will set specific dates for the official holiday period. These can vary a day or two from year to year.

You will receive:

5-6 days during the May holidays (usually the first week of May).

5-6 days during the October holidays (usually the first week of Oct).

Approximately 17-19 days during Spring Festival (usually starting the second week of February).

Vacation

Each year you will receive 14 days summer vacation. This will normally be in August or thereabouts.

Please click here to see a graph showing our typical weekly schedule.