In a legal sense yes these schools are crooks. However the reality is so many schools are unable to get working visas for teachers due to the ridiculous barriers to entry for the market. I think if a school is open with you from the start and you are aware you are going to work illegally that you can't fault the employer. A lot of people don't know this but you can be better off working illegally. If you are on a working visa you are tied down to that school and your boss can mess with you, with hold letters of recommendation, be uncooperative with your next employer, cancel your visa, they can also threaten to blacklist you.

At a school where you are on a business visa or tourist visa you can leave at anytime, no repercussions. Just don't go across the street to the competitor or the boss will have thugs come knocking on your door. Also illegal schools know they are illegal and should be paying a premium salary because they know you can leave at any time.

I don't suggest working illegally, however its a reality in teaching in China, at least for now. Employers should just be completely upfront about it and you can't accuse them of anything. No one wants to run an illegitimate school with illegal foreign staff its not good business. With visa fees, bribes, and potential fines it can be more costly than running a legitimate English school. However most start up schools don't have a choice because when you apply for a license to employ foreign teachers one of the most hindering of criteria is the physical size of your school, and not the mental competence of the owner and staff. So there fore if your Mr. and Mrs Chinese family opening up an English school in a district of Hangzhou, your not going to start by renting out 400 square meters of school space or whatever is required these days, your going to minimize your over head and start with one maybe two classrooms because it could take a while to build up your student base.

Training schools are about money but they are not all evil. Unfortunately Chinese owners don't see past day to day costs and their education suffers, because they piss off teachers and parents with tight money managing practices, ie making up classes for a 3 day holiday where kids couldn't come to school or charging kids and docking teachers when classes take time off for summer holiday without permission of the school.

Training schools can work and I believe they have a purpose as seen throughout Asia. What I would like to see are more schools run by foreigners than by local Chinese. a) If your a foreigner starting a training school you have probably been at more than a few schools and know the problems schools face, b） The foreigner has probably saved up enough money and has life responsibility that they aren't your typical idiot fresh out of a useless degree and wanting to party in asia c) You are hopefully passionate about education, you want money thats why you opened a school, but you know that succesful teaching comes through quality teachers, pay a premium and you can hire good people not idiots, as a result your students learn more and you will grow over time.

However China has pretty douche bag laws about this. International students coming from China to Canada can eventually get work permits and they use their parents corrupt government bribe money and many of them open businesses no problem, and I am talking small businesses. Ive seen foreigners open bars and schools and sometimes stupid shops that sell foreign goods （not the ones chinese like) but the ones foreigners like and nobody buys. They are always running it through the name of a Chinese person they trust and sometimes they get screwed. I don't see Chinas laws on foreign small businesses changing any time soon so hopefully of the thousands of teachers arriving in China each year to work at EF, Kid Castle, DD Dragon, Joy, ABIE, Disney, all the ever so "popular" schools on these types of forums. Im hoping since some of these guys do stay in China for a long time and they often end up marrying the first English speaker or TA that ends up sleeping with them that they work together with their Chinese wives and open up their own schools. They themselves are unqualified teachers and destined to walk the earth contract to contract making other people money, but they could very well be good educators so they should take initiative. Let's see the Laowai take control of the business. They might not have the Guanxi of their competitors, but if they can get approved to operate I am confident they can out do their inferior competition.

I don't mean to attack Turnoi, its just I see a lot of these people and they are just reviewing school after to school. You don't often see good reviews of schools. I have often told people good news is no news and even if your school is good if it has been open a few years odds are some loser worked there and didn't go well with the staff and eventually wrote about the school online. This website has become a public place of slander. I think there are good schools out there and the training school industry provides so many jobs giving such a great opportunity to people to go abroad and teach. If there were no training schools there would be a lot less demand for teachers and the jobs that would still be there could pay a lot less.