@HFCAMPO

The Yunnan University of Finance and Economics insisted I take the evaluation. They knew it was an evaluation of English teachers but insisted that I, the only teacher teaching Accounting take the evaluation.

How is that for a bare fact?

The test is copyright protected so discussing specific content is difficult.

@Dudeson's

If you took the great effort to click on the link I provided you might learn something.

Your comment, "Maybe it's just made up.", is ignorant.

OK you want names. Jesus!

Kunming No1 Middle School (GAC/ACT)
Kunming No 10 Middle School (Canadian Program)

Kunming University of Science and Technology
Oxbridge College (piggy backed on another license)

Henan University of Finance and Economics
ZhengDa University.

Now that we have some actual facts (specific schools) we can begin to pinpoint who exactly is requesting this evaluation, and maybe who is Not requesting this evaluation.

I find it curious that the person who originated this post also has 2 classifieds for recruitment of ACT teachers.

Oh boy, here we go again.
First I said 'maybe' and I said it's made up, but I didn't say any poster made it up.

If you would clicked on the link you posted, you would have noticed (according to that person doing the test) that it seems like a 'made up' exam. copy-pasting stuff from the internet to evaluate foreign teachers, plus that it doesn't seem to be a national standard test.

So it seems like a lot to me, except being a "real", "valid", "recognized" testing system.

and the fashion of the questions, only seem to be helpful for schools with no HR or Academic Leadership.
That's why I wrote I would never take that exam.
My advise stay away from the schools asking you to do the test, they seem to be stupid enough to think this is a useful test/filter to check if you up for the job to teach English in China.

It would make sense that as a recruiter, he is a manager who has been asked to get his staff to comply. And he is questioning why, by asking the wider community.

I know this as a FACT because I was the first to refuse to do it for him.

Yep confirming my point that anyone with a clue how to find a good teacher wouldn't even think of using the test. And TigerTiger being smart and assumingly professional enough to reject it.
Thanks Tigertiger...

It is not a test as such for the school employing. It is more of a survey of teachers by the central government.
The education department of government sends out a message to all the schools that this on-line evaluation is obligatory, and all teachers that they employ must do it. The employer does not see the results.
Some employers will be naturally cautious of openly defying an instruction from the government.
The easy answer is to just tell the school you have done it, even if you have not. The school can then tell the government that everyone has done it.

Ok, I think people are making a big deal over nothing with this thing. For the old China hand this is nothing to be alarmed about but I could see how folks who's only been here for a few years might be concerned.

This is one of those cockamamie "brilliant" ideas that came from some obscure "expert" in central government that is trying to impress the higher-up that they are useful and doing something to address a valid problem without actually addressing the problem. In other words, they are just going through the motions but don't care about actually solving the problem, much akin to the beautification project going on in Kunming. Basically, putting lipstick on a pig.

The source of this evaluation comes from the fact that China's Ministry of Education and the department of foreign experts have recently started looking into the quality of foreign teachers after receiving feedback from whoever that foreigners don't really teach anything but just sing and dance with the kids. This is a valid point. While there are many professional and highly qualified teacher, the vast majority are people with almost 0 teaching experience and barely have a TEFL certificate to back them up. What they end up doing in class singing, watch movies, etc.

To tackle this problem, instead of a fully thought out solution to really address the problem, they decided to put a band-aid over a gaping wound and hope that is enough, hence this evaluation system.

Supposedly this system will evaluate your quality, motivation, etc as a teacher. But as the article provided in the link pointed out, the questions are flawed and superficial and won't achieve the purpose they say they are trying to achieve.

I imagine, using my experience of how things works in China, this is the most likely scenario of how this system came to be.

The Ministry of Education said, "Something's got to be done about these 'crazy' foreigners that are coming to teach. I've heard from my relatives that their kid's foreign teacher does nothing but sing and dance", and so a meeting was convened and a task force was assigned to tackle the problem.

The head of the task force decided that that solution to the problem is to build a online survey (because it's simple to make and it'll impress the heck out of his boss by showing a "cutting-edge" technological solution.) He then puts out a requisite request and invited all his buddies to submit a bid. After a big banquet and lots of baijiu, the company that provided that largest bribe "wins" the contract to build the system. In order for the company recoup their "investment" aka the bribe, and make some money, they outsource the project to a local Uni or small company with software development experience and pay them peanuts.

Once the website is up and running, the head of the task force will assemble a media event to inaugurate the website, lots of pictures are taken and pats on the back.

After sometime, it was discovered that no one is using this system and so a edict via an official document from the central government telling the local government that they must use the system. This edict trickles down to the local unis and schools from the provincial department of education.

After receiving the edict, the school can do one of three things depending on the power dynamic between the Principal and the department of education. They can eagerly implement it and hopefully get some brownie points, drag their feet because it's a hassle to implement, or just ignore it.

And so this is why we are not seeing a concerted effort by all schools and unis to get foreign teachers to take the exam.

Sounds about right Tony.

The interesting thing will be to see how many private schools and teaching centers (those being the places that employ the unqualified teachers and illegals) have enough "Gungxi "to ignore it for long and how they will explain to the Dept of Education and foreign affairs dept that have 300 + students enrolled but only one teacher registered with them and who's taken the test.