Beware of South Ocean Group

[frpprfiii]

My first teaching job in China, and I end up with a lemon of a group. The first year was without incident working with South Oean School, Dalian. It wasn't until late in the year that things began to sour. Not being paid on time, paychecks delayed up to three months. Promises not kept, and finally, dropping enrollment, all dealt a final blow. I remain at new job minus about 15000 RMB not paid because South Ocean School Dalian went belly up leaving the Chinese teachers withot pay and without any hope of recovering their losses anytime soon. I myself, am promised that "as soon as they find a buyer for the school, I will be paid." Such is my first experience teaching in China. All the signs were there at the beginning of the new school term, but even with my gut-level feelings telling me to move on, I stayed with the school out of loyalty to my fellow teachers. I gained their respect and lost respect for others who jumped ship without a care for the welfare of the students they left behind.

So for newcomers. Avoid any dealings with South Ocean Group. As it stands now, the CEO is serving jail time, and the schools (all ten of them) remain in limbo as to their future.

frpprfiii@yahoo.com

[dah216k]

I published an article similar to this about Beijing New Oriental Foreign Language Schools, with which, many parallels can be drawn with South Ocean.

You don't need me to tell you that many such private schools like these are springing up around China. They are big, lavish, and impressive enough to tempt any Chinese parent fearful of their child's future prospects in China's overly-competative job market that their child is going to graduate with an impressive range of skills, especially in English.

The truth is, of course as you know, these private schools are merely cashing in on China's national craze for English teaching. And what a huge market it is with lucrative profits to be made. Those cashing in on this obsession are colorful personalities heading these corporate schools like cult leaders who pitch temptation to any passing foreign or domestic teacher into believing they're gonna have the time of their life working here if they just join the flock.

One has to remember that schools like South Ocean and New Oriental Foreign Language Schools are run by managers and administrators who have profits to return to their investors. It goes without saying, as you probably discovered with South Ocean, that none of them come from any kind of teaching or educational background, but business and marketing backgrounds. So why should they care about education? To them its a product to market or sell.

But this is what makes these corporate schools successful as well as causing their downfall, as you discovered at great cost. The success of the school and its performance is determined by market forces. Accordingly, this influences a 'corporate strategy' that has nothing to do with an education program, let alone trying to provide any kind of educational standard.

Schools like New Oriental Foreign Language School and South Ocean are run as profit-hungry corporations. So, is there any wonder that kids who study there are not referred to as 'students', but 'customers'. Perhaps South Ocean was similar?

But this is, perhaps unfortunately, the new face of modern Chinese education. The trouble is, even though officials working at education authorities are usually the first to voice their doubts against China's new corporate-style education, nobody is doing anything about it. Moral or ethical considerations don't enter into the minds of ministers and bureaucrats who don't seem to mind that the whole of China's education system is determined by marketing strategies.

South Ocean and New Oriental Foreign Language Schools group represent an ugly side of a new service industry in China. The future doesn't look bright for thousands of Chinese kids right now... does it?