Out, but perhaps not completely out
Loadsa 老外.
My sources inform me that the programme's foreign backers have pulled out because they weren't getting kids from the programme, replete with the contents of mummy and daddy's capacious wallet, going to their fourth-rate institution. There's a surprise. Actually, the foreign backers were only in the programme because the institute in question was in financial difficulty a few years ago. They also never promoted themselves in the schools and since we no longer had anything to do with them, we weren't about to be doing that ourselves.
In place of them, the school is getting some Cambridge-based programme (A-levels?) which is possibly like the one that they were getting at my school in Beijing just before I left. I assume that the teachers on this programme have to be accredited so that I couldn't switch from our programme to that one. Besides, if the salary I'm hearing is right, they're only being paid ¥20K (c. £1450) for the (academic) year which is the usual amount you get for working directly for a school here. I get paid quite a bit more than that. For our rates of pay to even out, they'd have to be teaching the grand total of three classes a week. You could survive on ¥2K a month, but I'd find it difficult. (Then again, I confess that I've been spending far too much money recently; wine shops selling real wine are dangerous ^_^)
Apparently, there will eventually be thirty such teachers here, although not next year. I'm not sure whether the school has even considered what a headache that's going to be. We're being moved to the 5th floor (well, the 4th in the real world), but it's not clear whether our classrooms up there will remain as they are or put to some other use. I hope that we won't be up there because the last thing I need is Dowager Empress Cixi being next door. 拜拜 media studies days. Also not clear whether we'll be expected to share our facilities with the new kids. That could be awkward.
My sources inform me that the programme's foreign backers have pulled out because they weren't getting kids from the programme, replete with the contents of mummy and daddy's capacious wallet, going to their fourth-rate institution. There's a surprise. Actually, the foreign backers were only in the programme because the institute in question was in financial difficulty a few years ago. They also never promoted themselves in the schools and since we no longer had anything to do with them, we weren't about to be doing that ourselves.
In place of them, the school is getting some Cambridge-based programme (A-levels?) which is possibly like the one that they were getting at my school in Beijing just before I left. I assume that the teachers on this programme have to be accredited so that I couldn't switch from our programme to that one. Besides, if the salary I'm hearing is right, they're only being paid ¥20K (c. £1450) for the (academic) year which is the usual amount you get for working directly for a school here. I get paid quite a bit more than that. For our rates of pay to even out, they'd have to be teaching the grand total of three classes a week. You could survive on ¥2K a month, but I'd find it difficult. (Then again, I confess that I've been spending far too much money recently; wine shops selling real wine are dangerous ^_^)
Apparently, there will eventually be thirty such teachers here, although not next year. I'm not sure whether the school has even considered what a headache that's going to be. We're being moved to the 5th floor (well, the 4th in the real world), but it's not clear whether our classrooms up there will remain as they are or put to some other use. I hope that we won't be up there because the last thing I need is Dowager Empress Cixi being next door. 拜拜 media studies days. Also not clear whether we'll be expected to share our facilities with the new kids. That could be awkward.
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