An new organisation backed by the Chinese government has launched in the UK aiming to attract native English speakers to teach English in China through a new internship programme.
Backed by the State of Administration Foreign Experts Affairs, Post Study was recently established to recruit students for the Teach in China internship scheme which waives the traditional two-years’ work experience required to be granted a working visa and guarantees their visa approval.
The scheme follows regulation changes announced in September that require all English speakers at state-funded schools to be native speakers or have a degree from an English speaking country.
Applicants must be over 18 and have a TEFL certification, to be eligible for the programme, however students without a bachelor’s degree will be granted shorter, six months visas.
“It’s not just telling them, ‘Come to China!’ A lot of people are doing it, but doing it well is a different case”
Post-graduate students with at least a bachelor’s degree and a TEFL certificate will be granted a foreign expert worker visa, valid for 12 months.
Interns will teach in public schools around China at the primary, secondary or university level.
Sasha Li, business development executive at Post Study, said the programme has the capacity to accept 1,000 students but will aim to recruit 100-200 students this year.
“We just moved to a new office with the entire underground floor for training purposes, so in the future we are going to run workshops and give as much information as we can to obtain students,” she said. “That’s the service we need to reach. It’s not just telling them, ‘Come to China!’ A lot of people are doing it, but doing it well is a different case.”
The programme is free of charge to students and guarantees their visas as well as arranges their accommodation and provides them with a monthly stipend and daily meal allowances.
Students pay for their flights, insurance and visa processing fees.
“Other companies charge interns to go to China for three months’ experience, and they babysit everything from the moment they apply for the programme to when they leave China– visa application, flights, accommodation and entertainment,” she said. “We are not going to babysit them but we definitely need to accomplish certain services to make sure they are secure.”
