Click Here to Subsribe to the 'Keeping it Real with the Boss' Feed It is always better to complete your contract in China if possible. Having a history of quitting your job early may make it more difficult to find a good full time teaching job in the future. Leaving early can also cause problems for your school especially if you are the only foreign teacher. However, sometimes life throws one of its many curve-balls and you simply need to ’get out’ of your contract. I have seen foreign teachers in China quit for a variety of reasons. Some leave because their school failed to live up to the terms of the contract. While I would say that this scenario is relatively uncommon in China, it certainly does happen and teachers feel that the only recourse they have is to quit their jobs. Other teachers quit early for health or personal reasons and will return to their home countries.
Unless you are quitting because you feel that you have been very much mistreated by your school, you should make sure that you take a good look at your contract and take the appropriate course of action to leave your employment. Playing tricks on your company such as taking a few sick days off and disappearing or giving a one day advance notice are simply not acceptable. The only reason that you would want to leave without prior notice is if you had a strong reason to believe that the school would not give you your salary if you stayed on.
Most ESL contracts in China specifically address the issue of leaving early. The last contract that I signed for example, requires me to make a written request to leave at least 30 days in advance. Not giving this notice could require me to forfeit a month’s salary. However, if I become sick, I can leave earlier as long as I have a doctor’s notice outlining my condition.
If you have a good relationship with your boss, you may be able to leave earlier than 30 days. The last company that I worked for allowed me to leave within 15 days and I did not have to lose any salary. The company just requested that I try to help them find a new foreign teacher to replace me.
You also need to keep in mind that once you leave your company, your boss will have to cancel your work visa. The school should be able to change your visa into a tourist visa which will give you another 30 days to look for a new job or leave the country.
If you do decide to find a new job in China, you will most likely be required to provide a sealed envelope from your previous employer informing the new company that you are no longer employed. Some schools may accept this information in a fax as well. The fact that your old company must provide this letter is another good incentive for you to quit your job according to the contractual terms. If you leave without any prior notice, your old employer is unlikely to want to help you and your new employer may be wary of hiring you.
In general, it is always better to follow through with the clauses in your contract. Of course, if your employer has been violating the contract throughout the duration of your employment then it is better just to leave. If you have any experiences with canceling your ESL contract in China, please leave us a comment below.
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[...] Vance wrote an article entitled How To Quit Your ESL Job in China in which he described the best way to say goodbye to a job that you do not like or that you [...]