Employment & Prof. Development

I have been working at this university since September 2011. It's a wonderful job and I enjoy it very much. However, the administration has not applied for my expert certificate or Z-visa yet. Its been over two months now.

I currently have a Residence Permit (valid till April 10, 2011) from another college that I left because of contract issues. My current college's FAO has been aware of the Residence Permit and told me they could take care of this problem. All this time I kept calling the FAO and they keep hanging up on me, or not answering their phone or replying to my emails.

I went to her office to talk face-to-face and she said "don't worry" and that was her same words on the phone last week, but now I learned I have NO Z-visa or Foreign Expert Certificate, and they still haven't yet taken my passport to the police station to transfer my residence permit.

This worries me. What should I do??

The Z-visa is only necessary for entering China legally for the purpose of earning income. Once you enter the country, you have 30 days to convert that Z-visa into a residence permit, which you have already done. There is no reason why your current employer would need to apply for a new Z-visa as—based on what you’ve written—your old employer did not close out your residence permit and downgrade you to a tourist visa. You still have a valid residence permit (based on the original Z-visa) and are earning income legally in China.

I believe the delay is a money-saving strategy only. Your FAO will probably wait until April 1 before taking your passport to the local PSB. She will then apply for an 11-month residence permit, as the schools save a lot of money by not asking for the full year. This approach proves to be inconvenient for the foreign teacher as, every year, the residence permit’s renewal date gets pushed up another month but this approach has become normal operating procedure across China's universities.

Dr. Greg is correct.

Further, public schools and universities can now legally "loan" foreign teachers (FTs) to each other, so the origin of the expert's certificate is of little import these days.

Private training schools, however, cannot loan or trade FTs with other schools.