Many ads have appeared lately advertising for teachers at Sino British college/ Guangxi University for Nationalities, Nanning, Guangxi Province.

The positions seem very attractive with good pay and reasonable hours. They have a hard time attracting teachers and in fact the pay has decreased since the I was their but thats another matter. There are many reasons to give this place a wide berth and I will list 5

Know that I worked here briefly so my comments are based on my own experience and the experiences of others and everything I say is fact.

1. The city of Nanning is a dirty, dust blown boring little hovel with very few expats, few bars and little to recommend. It is in the process of having a subway built so
traffic is a nightmare and the air is thick with dust and grime. The weather is very humid too - worse than Bangkok, believe me.

2. The students are low level, gaokao failures, some are spoilt rich kids, others juts lazy and stupid. All will pass your course bc they have paid an outrageous fee for getting a chance to go to uni. In the foundation program they study English subjects but the degree (from a 3rd rate British University) is for accounting - go figure!

3. The accommodation is a disgrace. They have teachers staying in a hostel on campus in 2 rooms. Internet is free but atrocious. The property is rat infested and some teachers had money and property stolen from their rooms. Importantly, guests are not allowed to stay overnight and the front door is locked at 11.00pm - thats right, no lady friends allowed! They may offer you a small allowance to stay off campus but you have to find it yourself. They discourage this because it means a lack of control over you. This control is exemplified in needing to apply for permission to leave the city over your holidays! Yes, ask to go on holidays by filling in a permission slip for the Dean of the business school.

4. Terrible management. The course is run by the business school with an old soviet style mentality. They seriously care little about teachers and think teachers need to stay in the office the whole day regardless of whether they are teaching or not. Your 20 - 24 classes/ 16 hours is really a 7.30 - 4.30 35 hour job where you will be stuck in an office with slow internet, waiting around just in case a students decides they need to ask you a question. These same learned gentlemen banned students from wearing skirts below the knee after I left and sent them back to their dormitory to change clothes - seriously. Its like the 1960's with this bijou swilling, old mans club.

5. Last but not least is the program manager or what ever title she wants to give herself. Katherine Poh is a law unto herself. She is an ageing, spiteful, vindictive, c*nt of a woman from Malaysia. She knows nothing about education and even less about management. She runs the program with a divide and conquer mentality and thinks nothing of backstabbing, lying, manipulating and cheating teachers. She cheated a Canadian gentleman out of his visa fees, cheated a Brit out of his hospital fees and tried to change the contract of a filipino woman to pay her less. Her boss is a two faced conniving used car salesman. Together, these two put the program together and aim to run it until they have drained it for every cent of management fees. They are a shameful twosome that feed like vampires on the weak and quickly fire strong willed, decent teachers.

There is many more things i can go into but I am just glad to be free

Now you have got the low down on this terrible place to work. Go there with your eyes wide open but don't say you weren't warned!