AMonk, I was talking to Yolanda about this yesterday. She's a registered teacher and attended a 5 year program at a teachers college in Heilongjiang.
One of her classmates just got married to a guy in Beijing and is now waiting in her hometown in Heilongjiang to get a teaching job, before going back to Beijing. That didn't make any sense to me. Surely she should be looking for a job in Beijing?
Here's how it works...
People who graduated from a Teachers College prior to 2005 are part of a government "guaranteed job for life" program. As long as they graduate the government is required to employ them as teachers in a government school. More recent graduates miss out.
The teachers wait for the government to offer the positions, go to the school and collect their bank card for their pay, and decide whether they actually want to teach there or not. If they do teach there, they turn up for work every day and life goes no. If they decide (then or later) that it's too hard, too boring, or get a better offer elsewhere, they stop going. The government keeps paying money into their bank account each month regardless. Up north it starts at about 1500 per month and is increased each year. It continues on into retirement.
According to Yolanda, most of her classmates completed the course but have very little interest in actually being teachers, just want the salary. This explained to me why, at our wedding with all her English-teacher qualified classmates, none of them could speak English!
Sometimes a small payment may be necessary to the school principal to grease the wheels. Sometimes a position can be "sub-let" to another teacher. Many new graduates (without the guarantee) are desperate for jobs, so the "guaranteed" teachers will give them their own position for a part of the salary, usually 600-800RMB per month. The new teachers take it and are happy with it, because it's a job in an industry with too many qualified people looking for too few positions.
Having the guarantee also means that a teacher can go and try other jobs and businesses and come back to the school anytime they like if things don't go as planned. That's pretty good security!
So Yolanda's recently married classmate is waiting for her salary card and then intends returning to Beijing to be with her husband there, but will also be returning with the a guaranteed "job for life" and 1500RMB per month going into her own bank account from her teaching job in a small village in the middle of Heilongjiang province, that she will never, ever teach at. Unless she wants to and decides one day to turn up there and say, "Hey! I'm a teacher here. Where can I sit and read the paper?" (Read Ruth's (c) above to give this some perspective)
Yolanda hasn't got her job yet, but it's coming... "3 years is a bit long to wait for a job" says I. Apparently, they did "Government entrance" type exams first and offered jobs quickly to the one's who passed. Now they're doling out the jobs to those who didn't pass the exam (but did graduate from the college) - like her classmate.
Also, those who took other jobs after graduation (like Yolanda), and didn't bother to do sit the exam don't mind the wait. They know it will happen eventually and once you've got it, it's yours for life.