If you are looking for an opporunity to work as an English trainer in Shanghai, you might need to be more cautious.
The news said Kai En English Training Center, which has been teaching English in Shanghai for more than 13 years, was closed suddently yesterday (15 Dec), leaving the English learners and teachers stranded.
Empty classroom after Kai En sudden closure
(Courtesy photo by EastDaily)
Brian McCloskey, founder of Kai En Training Center and all the staff all suddently disappeard and only left empty offices and classrooms.
A few English trainers said that they heard that Kai En had financial problems and they didn’t get paid for months. But Brian always told them not to worry because he had found new investors until they were shocked when they saw nobody in the center yesterday.
English learners also found it is hard to believe because many of them still came to the center to have the class as usual the day before yesterday and saw many new students were still registering at the counter.
Shocked students don't know what to do after Kai En sudden closure
(Courtesy photo by EastDaily)
The very likely reason of the closure might be its financial problem since they also didn’t pay their rent and advertisement fee for about half an year.
Kai En’s sudden closure leaves lots of questions and problems and requires fast reactions from government bodies.
Actually in my opinion, the language training market in Shanghai is really messy. It doesn’t require lots of investment to set up a training center as all the centers run in the pre-paid model, which means learners pay the bulky tuition fee first and then take the classes within a few months or a year etc. According to the report, Kai En charges average 7000RMB per person. It is not a small money!
It is very much the same with the gyms, beauty saloons in Shanghai and this model imposes high risk on the customers because once the company is in trouble and they can hardly get their money back (see my previous blog here). And we have seen too many those cases in Shanghai!
Actually Kai En is not the first nor the only language training organisation which played sudden death here in Shanghai. Linguaphone suddenly closed in October and till now lots of students haven’t got their money back.
Tags: Jobs in Shanghai
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seeing as i left kai en about 20 months ago, I could let you know it’s been a much longer time that they’ve been in trouble.
i remember reports that they were using money from student E to pay for student A’s course. (this means student B,C and D were still in queue) so there were obviously backlogged money problems then.
Look at the conditions of the Schools. Peoples Square hardly had a floor, and the walls were dirtier than a street persons underwear.
don’t believe the reports that the problems started 12 months ago. that was just what all the new teachers thought (seeing as the turnover was pretty high)
In 2007 the schools looked nice and the place was jumping like a party. By 2009 they started to fall apart. Why didn’t the students complain?–because Kai En’s schools looked just like the schools that most of the local students went to as children. Of course the students weren’t focusing on appearance.
Kai En won over students with its informal “people approach”. The teachers were given a lot of freedom on how they dealt with their students. I highly respect other schools such as EF and WallStreet–they DEFINITELY have their advantages to their approach. The advantage at Kai En, as was told to me by my students that had left WallStreet, EF, and Web was “The teachers at Kai En are more casual and friendly, and the class is easy-going”.
I am not standing up for the academic approach (or lack there-of) at Kai En, merely offering an insider’s perspective.
Three of the members of Kai-En that were associated with that entity have skipped the country. But they were also affiliated with ChinesePod. When I came to Shanghai, I dropped by ChinesePod offices, and I met both Ken Carroll and Steve Williams. Both of them had their own desks/offices at ChinesePod.
If Ken Carroll, and Steve Williams they were so honest, then why did they skip out and fled Shanghai,China? Why didn’t they stay in Shanghai to face their former students, ex-instructors and ex-employees?
And more importantly, where is the millions of rmb that is missing? It does sound like a scam. I wonder if Time Magazine and other foreign publications that published articles have done followup news on these guys.
I’m glad I didn’t sign up for ChinesePod when the annual rates were raised March 1, 2010. I have serious doubts about these continual denials.
I’d been following ChinesePod from the very get-go. I remember all of the earlier comments complaining about Ken Carroll and his terrible Irish accent. Ken Carroll constantly butchered his Mandarin pronunciation and mangled the tones.
I was surprised that he always continued to be on the Beginner & Elementary lessons. Thank goodness ChinesePod hired John Pasden back in May 2006, because Ken was doing the Intermediate lessons too.
I wonder what has become of his household? Have the authorities taken possession of any of his remaining assets? It must be terrible for Ken’s family to have fled China with a couple of suitcases. I wonder if they are still being paid by ChinesePod and how they are doing in Ireland? What a disgrace!
BTW: I always thought Ken Carroll was egotistic and rather pompous.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Arcsa. Arcsa said: AMEN. "Thank goodness ChinesePod hired John Pasden back in May 2006" John & Jenny = Mandarin-learning gold!
This is priceless. I met Brian in January of 2008 and knew then his business was a scam. He took advantage of the Chinese people and stole their money. Brian and his partners are criminals and should be sent back to China to face the people and businesses they still owe money to. If the Chinese government really cared about the citiziens of china they would hunt these three down and make them face justice. I’m not so sure Brian and Ken are back in Ireland. Maybe you should look for them in Taiwan. They owned an english school in Taiwan before going to China.
What a Huge Surprise!
In 2008 I worked in Kai En as a foreign English teacher, at it’s Wu Jiao Chang Branch. As an employee of Kai En, I thought it’s teaching style and quality was the best in Shanghai. In fact, after I got laid off from Kai En, I continued to use it’s teaching material during my private teaching lessons. In 2009 I left Shanghai. The biggest problem Kai En had was it’s huge amount of foreign support staff, which must have been very expensive. Regardless, what goes up must come down.
Zaijian Kai En,
James Andrew Worley