China plans letting foreign teachers and students come back
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On July 28th, a seminar themed "How to return to China (Guangzhou)" was jointly held by Guangzhou Foundation for Internation Exchange and Cooperation and the European Chamber of Commerce in China. Among many other things, the Guangzhou government addressed:
How China is working hard to ensure the return of foreign teachers and students safely to China during the pandemic.
Someone bragging to his friend stuck in China when their country arranged a charter flight to take them back home in February.
There are a lot of international students and teachers trapped overseas and are unable to return to the country due to travel restrictions, some have been separated from their families and some are losing their properties which have been left unattended. Some of the worst hit are ones that took vacation and ended up getting trapped in other countries rather than their own, not to mention businessmen.
So far, only major companies have been able to bring back their employees that are deemed essential to the country's economy while international teachers and students are still left in a limbo not knowing what they have to do to be able to get back to China. But it is not just international students and teachers that are affected by the travel restriction, even individual businessmen also took the hit.
For instance, Guangzhou's "Little Africa" has seen a shrink of about 70% of its regular residents who left after the Covid-19 outbreak. Most of them were crucial to driving the economy of the region, but as China restricted travel, they are unable to go back. Most of the stores around are running out of business and landlords have started soliciticing for new tenants.
Back to international students and teachers, by now, most of the international schools have opened but are lacking qualified staff and the demand from international schools to bring back their teachers is growing.
While some schools have the means to work out with the government arrangements to secure the return of their foreign teachers, this is a very rare and difficult arrangement. An example of such arrangement is the one announced by Keystone Academy which reported on its official website that it had secured visas for its 14 foreign teachers that will arrive in China soon. But this is just one school that has been able to do so, and it explains the difficulty in negotiating such arrangements.
Shao Yuansa, Director of Guangzhou Foundation for International Exchange and Cooperation said:
"The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Education and other departments are discussing and formulating entry policies for foreign teachers and students to help them return to school safely during the global pandemic. As the policy has not been published yet, foreign students and teachers are unable to enter China for the time being."
Another official, the Deputy Director of Guangzhou Education Bureau, Gu Zhongpeng, said the bureau will actively help foreign teachers who are currently abroad to return to China through supportive policies such as offering visa application convenience. He added:
"We will spare no effort to ensure the autumn semester can start as scheduled."
Although the exact time has not been explicitly stated, but autumn semester will start in September and many schools have announced that students must register in September, I assume that from next month we will start hearing more good news and I hope the entry policies will be published soon. There are many development so far, and if haven't done so, you can also read the article on some countries that have reached agreement to resume cross-border travel with China that is posted today.
Quote of the day: “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” ― Andy Dufresne, quoted from the movie Shawshank Redemption.
Let us know your thoughts in the comment section. As usual, stay awesome, live happily, and enjoy every second in life! Thanks~
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