Teaching Contract with COVIG19 relocation / compensation policy

[chupachang]

Hi everyone!

 

I have an offer from a company and I was reviewing the contract details last few days.

Would like to ask fellow expats who are currently residing / moving to China from 2020 on COVIG19 relocation / compensation policy.

 

1.  Does the school offer relocation costs entirely related to COVIG19 when entering China. (i.e. quarantine hotel charges , PCR tests)

2. During school closures when ordered by the authorities , how does the school handle day to day operations while ensuring teachers/students are not affected?

3. Are there any new compensation policies for teaching staffs in case on unforeseen school closures during COVIG19 and teachers are asked to leave?

 

Really want to plan this carefully as moving to a new work will definitely incur costs from COVIG19 related activities and really want to be well prepared for this!

Cheers

[Jan Finster]

On 1/17/2022 at 3:20 AM, chupachang said:

1.  Does the school offer relocation costs entirely related to COVIG19 when entering China. (i.e. quarantine hotel charges , PCR tests)

2. During school closures when ordered by the authorities , how does the school handle day to day operations while ensuring teachers/students are not affected?

3. Are there any new compensation policies for teaching staffs in case on unforeseen school closures during COVIG19 and teachers are asked to leave?

 

 

I do not want to be Captain Obvious, but ob***ly, you should ask those questions to the company. Whatever they promise, have the details confirmed in the contract.

 

I highly doubt this is legitimate since at the moment China is implenting a zero-COVID policy and on-site English teachers are unlikely a priority...  

[chupachang]

On 1/17/2022 at 4:04 PM, Jan Finster said:

 

I do not want to be Captain Obivious, but ob***ly, you should ask those questions to the company. Whatever they promise, have the details confirmed in the contract.

 

I highly doubt this is legitimate since at the moment China is implenting a zero-COVID policy and on-site English teachers are unlikely a priority...  

Thanks @Jan Finster  I think Covid19 policy probably is something that is not listed in the contract usually. Agree different schools have different approaches on handling this. So just want to know how schools are managing this part for expats.

[malazann]

let me be captain obvious junior. facebook expat groups are a pretty good resource, especially for expat teachers since they are so common

[Jan Finster]

Please keep us updated should you go ahead. 

 

 

Spoiler

(I do not want to be overly pessimistic about it, but I wonder if it was not wiser to wait until the pandemic is over. Currently, not much good can come from it. Imagine being in a city that has to undergo a lockdown and you are stuck in a sh**ty apartment for months on end)

 

[mungouk]

TLDR: ask your employer. There's no national policy relating to this.

From my experience, schools are making it all up as they go along. 

 

There isn't really much policy at this level; there are the general national requirements around epidemic management and control, which are then interpreted (usually more strictly) by province-level govt, and then these are interpreted (again, more strictly) by the individual schools and colleges. As you go down the hierarchy it seems each level is more determined to cover its own backside against getting into trouble — this probably applies to everything in China generally.

 

For relocation costs including QT, my college covered everything including visa fees, pre-travel PCR tests, QT hotel fee and in-QT PCR testing — although they made it clear that this was a one-off... for anyone going home and then coming back to China they would need to cover their own QT costs. Again, this is down to each school how they handle it. In my opinion anyone relocating overseas should expect to get all these out-of-pocket expenses covered by the employer. 

 

We have a rather paranoid set up here at my college at present... they claim it's a "closed loop" system. We have to report on Dingtalk every morning to say where we are (most of the teachers live on campus), whether we've had contacts with anyone who has COVID, etc. We have a QR code in Dingtalk that's normally blue; if we leave the city (I think, could be the province) it goes grey and won't allow us back into the campus, and neither will the face-recognition on the gates. In that case we have to apply for the code to be turned blue again before we return, and if we've been out of the province we need to include a negative PCR test with that, from the last 48 hours. I don't know if this is typical to other institutions, or an extreme example.

 

There was an outbreak in Zhejiang recently and some of our students who went home at the weekend to a medium-risk area had to do quarantine on campus when they came back, and teachers were told to prepare for delivery fully online in case of lockdown, but that didn't happen in the end. We were told here (after a lot of chasing and asking for some kind of written policy) that if there was an outbreak on campus then we would all be locked down and the local govt and Ministry of Education would take over management of the campus.

 

[chupachang]

@mungouk Great information on the above. I realized not many schools / companies really discuss in details on COVIG19 related relocation costs in the contract so I am in the midst of checking as well.

 

In cases where there are outbreaks in a province and schools are forced to shut down , how does schools handle this at the moment and how will teachers be compensated? (i.e. : If schools are being closed for more than a month and teachers are forced to take unpaid leave?)