Teach For China Reviews

Teach For China leadership makes it almost impossible to work at this organization. Honestly, my happiest moments at this organization were spent incommunicado on top of a mountain without cell phone reception or internet It was there that I could focus on my work instead of getting angry at whatever half-baked idea the senior leadership was trying to promulgate. The way Teach For China makes decisions is emblematic of the general criticism of non-profits. That is, without a profit bottom line as a measure of accountability, it's very easy to fall into the trap of engaging in pet project activities that sound great on paper but are completely ineffectual in reaching our intended impact. I can't tell you how many times we would gather for meetings to listen to the next 'new' initiative that was being rolled out as a priority for staff and fellows to accomplish. One semester it's data, the next it's oral English, and the next it's drive to push fellows into entrepreneurial post-fellowship tracks. Of course, most of these initiatives, handed down to the regions from the head office Beijing, run out of steam within a semester because they are usually completely impractical and do not receive any buy in from regional actors. I remember attending one conference to find out that our core values had suddenly changed. I'm quite negative for this company's growth in the long run. Fellows' effectiveness is hampered because of a lack of a unified strategy and because of all of the distracting initiatives that exhaust their energies in trivial pursuits. TFC has an excellent marketing department that does wonders for our image to the outside world, but real growth and especially impact will be sclerotic at best if the organization continues under it's current direction.

The top management are consisted of family and friends of the CEO. It is very hard to gain the trust of the CEO just by performance or hard working. Performance management is not linked to promotion - you need to be either very close to the top management, or you have to constantly ask for promotion opportunities, get exposure to the top management and push for decisions. Promotion processes are not fair.