Problems at Kaien language school

[chrix]

Blog post from Chinesepod: http://blog.chinesepod.com/2009/12/17/clarification/

Questions: what kind of school is Kaien language school anyways, and what kind of problems are they having?

I found a bit of info after googling, but if this school is/was important, it might be beneficial to discuss it here.

http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/20091217/12027117738.shtml

[anonymoose]

I have no details about this at all, but it's not surprising since the competition between English schools in Shanghai is very fierce. I've seen scuffles break out on the street between people trying to promote their respective schools.

[roddy]

Kai'en was founded by Ken Carroll, who also founded Chinesepod - hence if Kaien's gone south I guess people might be asking if there's any consequences for Chinesepod, hence the post from them saying 'no'.

If anyone's interested they could check eslcafe.com and similar sites - no doubt there are some teachers telling all (that they know).

[Daan]

More information here and here. Quite the story.

[chrix]

Thank you, roddy and Daan.

Full disclosure: I write a column on chengyu at the German language community blog of chinesepod, but other than that have no affiliation with them. Was just curious what the hubbub was all about...

[gato]

Some threads here:

http://www.shanghaiexpat.com/MDForum-viewtopic-t-102917.phtml

GOD! What happened to KaiEn English? the boss disappear!!

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=77480&sid=e355b1f495e842020216ecd902be1ccd

Kai En (Shanghai) bankruptcy from a teacher's perspective

[chrix]

So what about chinesepod then? It might be true that they are separate business entities, but if the people who disappeared were all in management positions at chinesepod, what's going on there? I mean as an occasional chinesepod user, I know the name Ken Carroll, he's one of the co-founders, as roddy said... In all honesty, the chinesepod blog post doesn't clear up much

[Daan]

It's probably not intended to, and I guess ChinesePod employees are under strict instructions not to comment on this affair while it's unfolding. And even if they aren't, I know I wouldn't if I wanted to keep my job.

[chrix]

Oh the blog post was by the CEO, not by some employee. I'm not in PR, but if such a crisis was unfolding, I'd think you'd need to address issues like high-profile co-founders/employees being affected and so on.

[roddy]

LOL at what's at the top of the list of twitter posts on the blog page. Not sure how long it'll be there for.

Hank's invited further questions in the post - post there, give them a chance to respond directly.

[chrix]

good suggestion roddy, I just posted a comment there.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

More about the interconnection between Praxis Language and KaiEn may be found here:

http://career.kaien.net.cn/index.php?page=about.founders

[chrix]

Looks like they did not choose to publish my comment, or it didn't go through due to technical reasons Anyways a lively discussion is going on there now, with the CEO answering questions by worried users, so that should be fine.

EDIT: Ken Carroll has posted twice on this community thread: http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/6386

Edited December 18, 2009 at 12:48 PM by chrix

[Daan]

In that same thread, Jenny Zhu also writes that:

When Ken suddenly took off, it was a huge shock for all of us at ChinesePod and Praxis. We had no notice and have limited knowledge of what happened. We are not in a position to speak for Ken.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[gato]

Seems to confirm that they've left the country to flee from creditors, some of whom might not be on the up and up....

Also fairly clear that ChinesePod is owned by Praxis, and not the people who own or ran the school.

[hanyu_xuesheng]

Today is a new day and the media were eager to write new stuff about KaiEn:

Some relief for victims of KaiEn English fiasco as ChinesePod CEO downplays Ken Carroll's role (by the way you can read here: Jenny Zhu is Hank Horkoff's wife??? That's new.)

Stranded staff gets partial pay

And the discussions are going on @ ChinesePod where quite a lot of students have questions, opinions, doubts:

Where is Ken?

Official "Clarification"

Edited December 19, 2009 at 07:21 PM by hanyu_xuesheng
text added

[Bob161]

Interesting article about the collapse of several major English language schools around China.

http://www.danwei.org/business/bankrupt_schools_and_their_fleeing_foreign_bosses.php

[chrix]

Merged.

[yaritai]

think of the karma. What goes around. Comes around