My school is going under

Discussion Open Forum
1

I’ve been working for the same anchingban for 2 years now. Since it’s inception it has yet to make money, break even, etc.etc… I have always gotten paid on time and have even had a few pay increases. The students are great and so are the chinese teachers and the Taiwanese half of the ownership. In my opinion this school has been failing because of bad business decisions on behalf of the foreign owner. It’s not really my place to criticize; the only thing I have to compare it to is the buxiban I worked at for 2 years that was basically a mom and pop english school that went out of control. I learned a lot working there and still keep in touch with my old boss. In my books, he knows exactly what he’s doing.

Anyway, the foreign owner of the anchingban I work at was a personal friend before I began working for her. SHe had a kindy that went under right before she opened this school. Since I know her on a personal level she tells me a lot of what is going on regarding money etc…

Basically, it’s been once bank loan after the other… 2 years of my pay has been from money borrowed from the bank or pulled out as a cash advance from one of the zillion credit cards the taiwanese owner has applied for. Last month the foreign owner told me the school was close to 6 million NT in debt wth 90,000NT/month interest payments.

They can’t close now because parents have paid until the end of the semester. This is my question:

What happens when schools kick the bucket? What happens to my ARC? Will i have to leave the country ASAP? Will i be granted any kind of grace period? WHat do you think they’ll tell the parents? It will break my heart to see it go; I think it could have been a success.

2

I’d bet that your ARC will be invalidated. Start looking for another jobbo pronto.

From the sound of it, I’m slightly surprised they lasted this long. Never go in debt to keep a money losing business going. Just let it die.

3

Sorry to hear this. I was in a similiar situation a few months ago. My boss couldn’t afford to pay me anymore and the school was going to close down. I looked for another school, immediately. Found one I liked, gave my notice and left the old school.

You need to take care of yourself first… You really don’t want to have ARC problems if you don’t have to.

Good luck.

4

Ditto what the others above me have said. You’re going to get caught in a bind. If the school is nice, they may “delay” their cancellation of the work permit. You may have at the most a “grace period” of up to 30 days depending on the timing of their paper submission. Or you may have none and force to make a visa run :s.

Good luck.

5

The problem seems to be the way they handle their personal. Everybody knows labor is the most expensive part of the operation. If they were smart they should never offer raises to the teachers and if money is tight they should not pay them on time. Some other possible cost saving measures would be to find reasons to doc the teacher

6

[quote=“purple people eaters”]The problem seems to be the way they handle their personal. Everybody knows labor is the most expensive part of the operation. If they were smart they should never offer raises to the teachers and if money is tight they should not pay them on time. Some other possible cost saving measures would be to find reasons to doc the teacher