Work somewhere else - English Teacher CINEC Group Employee Review

Dear English Teacher, First of all, we would like to thank you for your work in support of student success, and we are sorry to hear that your experience working with CINEC did not meet your expectations. However, we would like to make some clarifying comments about your statements. When looking at the entire compensation package (salary, bonuses, free furnished housing, etc.), CINEC offers a very competitive compensation package with teachers saving significantly more money working for us in China compared to working in a BC school in Canada. We offer a higher salary than most (if not all) BC offshore schools, and that is part of the reason we are able to attract and retain such a great teaching staff. Some international schools do provide a higher salary, but they typically also require significantly more work from teachers and a higher number of teaching hours per week than we do. Regarding your comment about not being always paid on time, it is true that CINEC was once late paying our teachers due to an unforeseen banking audit, but this was the only time this happened during the history of our company, and we ensured that teachers in dire need of money were provided that money right away. In terms of professional development, we would like to clarify that our teachers are provided professional development opportunities in a number of ways, namely: the BC Ministry of Education organizes one or two online pro-d sessions annually, CINEC organizes one large in person professional development session per year bringing together teachers from all CINEC schools, Principals organize their own in-house pro-d, first year teachers are provided a teacher evaluation, established teachers develop a professional growth plan in collaboration with school administrators, and teachers are provided a generous yearly allowance to pursue their own individual professional development opportunities. During covid, we did have to cancel the annual in person pro-d sessions, but we did organize online sessions focused on collaboratively tackling emerging issues in BC education, such as the new assessment policy, integrating indigenous content and the First People’s Principles of Learning into our teaching, and approaches to inquiry and project-based learning. We don’t understand what you mean by having no support from admin, or your suggestion about being more transparent or cutting the red tape. We pride ourselves on nurturing and retaining experienced, competent administrators who support their teachers, and on treating teachers as the professionals that they are by not burdening them with unnecessary red tape. If you would like to provide some constructive feedback on any of the areas identified in your letter, please feel free to anonymously contact us at support@cinec.ca. Thank you, CINEC Education Group