VSO used to send volies to the PRC to teach English. In their bunf, they said you'd receive an 'allowance'. Funny that said allowance was approx double what salaried Chinese teachers of English were on. Shows you what some 'Dame sth or other' working for VSO knew about the situ here behind the Great Wall! SFA! Typical Brit arrogance. No way would VSO let any of its its volies teach without Zs!
Good thing VSO has jettisoned China for EFL work. Better not to work for a volie outfit. One boss, the Chinese one, is better'n 2! Some of their volies I happened to meet told me their complaints weren't pursued with the Chinese employer by their VSO reps, who chose to duck out, for reasons of "diplomacy".
I reckon 'allowance' = 'stipend', meaning-wise!

If anything FT's working on F and L Visas should get a higher wage because in my experience, generally speaking, they seem to be better teachers. I think what it is, is that if you do have the impudence to come to China and teach without a degree, you are probably self-educated; which means you have really wanted to learn, and so, very confident of your abilities in English, otherwise you wouldn't have the nerve to attempt it; whereas, any half-wit can get a degree these days, with very little effort. The best and most popular teachers I've met in China haven't had degrees. It follows then that Buckland are getting the best teachers(those on F visas) for much less than they pay their Z Visa teachers(the ones with the degrees) They did say that Z Visa teachers were on a proper salary and the others receiving a stipend- although there's some doubt as to whether they know what stipend means.