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  • 1 Post By chingleutsch

options for moving on in the teaching/education world

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Apr 2012
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    16

    options for moving on in the teaching/education world

    Hi,
    I am looking for advice from those working in the education sector in Hong Kong.

    For a person who has considerable experience working in tution centres within Hong Kong and holds a degree qualification (but not a PGDE or equivalent) and Certificate in TESOL, what opportunities are there to move on to other areas of work within education in HK?

    Are there opportunities in international schools or governement schools and what kind of salary could you expect? Where would you look for these, or other kinds of opportunities?


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Nov 2009
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    Tuition centres and *real* schools are as different as apples and aardvarks. It's possible you could get a job in one of the latter with a non-related degree and a TESOL cert (provided it's an accredited 120 hour, including real-time teaching version), but pay wouldn't be that much better than at a decent language centre. You'd be stuck at the bottom of the pay scale and without prospect of promotion until you got yourself either a PGCE or a BEd.

    carang likes this.

  3. #3

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    Apr 2012
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    Hi,
    Thanks for the response and for airing your concerns. Given what you've said I still feel that it may be worthwhile pursuing this. I'm open to the fact that a school would be very different from a tuition centre and actually that is partly what interests me about a move. I do have the type of TESOL qualification you say is necessary so my questions around where to look for positions or how to approach such a move still hold. Any advice on these?

    Also for clarity, can you elaborate on what figure were you thinking of when you said the salary would be similar to a decent tuition centre? What would you expect that to be and how does it change when you have a PGDE or equivalent?


  4. #4

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    There would certainly be chances to do what you are thinking of; probably your best bet would be to start trawling ads in the SCMP classifieds. It will be more likely to get a position in a primary than a secondary school (although there might be the occasional desperate band 3 high school, if you REALLY want to jump in the deep end...). Depending on the number of other applicants, you would also have a fighting chance to get into the EdB PNET scheme - if you do, I understand you need to undertake to get additional qualifications (PGDE) in your first couple of years' employment.

    As far as I'm aware, international schools don't normally employ special ESL teachers; the assumption is that students are already comfortable learning in English. To get your foot in the door there, you will need both formal qualifications and some years classroom experience using the curriculum that your "target" school follows. A possible exception would be if your current degree is in a subject area where a teacher is needed in a secondary department.

    This is a rough guess, as I'm out of the loop pretty much, but at the bottom rung as a non-EdB PNET, say, 25K (??). PGDE / getting into the EdB scheme bumps this up 10K +.