Salaries are usually late being paid.

Teacher accommodation is sub-par.

Yellow, the school owner has physically threatened teachers.

The school routinely violates terms of signed contracts.

One of the Chinese Teachers currently at the school, who goes by the English name Sid, has been tasked with slandering other schools and their foreign teachers on Chinese Websites.

Bluniverse uses images of Contest winners in ads and credits their teaching methods for the student’s English Ability…most of the winners of the contests are poached after they already won and had never attended classes at Bluniverse before.

One former Australian Teacher routinely recruits online new FT’s for which he recieves a 5000 RMB payment. He lies about conditions at the school to get the recruit to work at the school.

Stay away.

As organiser of the Anhui segment of the CCTV Outlook English Competition, Bluniverse has charged students fees in excess of the entrance fee mandated by CCTV. Children of students who do not pay the extra fees, do not advance in the contest. BLuniverse Foreign teachers acting as judges for the Contest are told in advance who to give high marks to, to ensure Bluniverse students, and not students from other schools win.

Bluniverse routinely advertises by using photos of foreign teachers who have never worked at the school. Some advertising still features a picture of a former Bluniverse foreign teacher named Charles who committed suicide. He is listed as a current teacher at the school.

Bluniverse routinely makes teachers give free demo lessons to middle schools. THe teachers are not paid for the work as it is often arranged that te teacher is invited to lunch with local educators and is then Shanghaied into a classroom afterward.

Bluniverse refuses all applications from foreign teachers who are not white.

Here are some examples of the kind of people that run this school:
1. The new school ran by previous teachers were threatened with violence if they continued to open the new school. Bluniverse sent their driver to that school to scare the teachers. For the current 3 weekends, Bluniverse has sent people from their corporate office to intimidate this new school. I was present during two of these episodes and videoed these people. The director of Bluniverse tried to knock my camcorder from my hands in an attempt to stop me from videoing him.
2. One teacher at Bluniverse told me that the local tax person would come and discuss my taxes with me. She told me to tell them that I only made 4500 RMB a month so that I would not have to pay any tax. Their logic does not make any sense, I make 6500 RMB and they have taken out taxes every month from my pay. First off, why would I lie to their government about money that has already been taken out of my monthly salary? Secondly, lying to their government means I would be lying to my government which is a crime. I said no and asked who told you to instructed you to lie to me. She said it was the headmaster. I went and talked to the headmaster and he also instructed me to lie. I asked him who told him to tell me this and he said that the owner of Bluniverse told him to tell me. My next follow-up was to ask the corporate office for a copy of my monthly tax returns and I was told that they could not do this and that they paid them in bulk payments. Pretty bold lie since it is the laws for all foreigners to pay monthly and for either the company or the individual to submit a standard tax form with foreigners monthly wage information. After that, things got worse; I was then asked to fill out a complete form of all my classes dating back to the beginning of my employment.
3. During an English competition, I was instructed to help our schools students get more points and was told all schools do the same thing. I refused.
4. 90 days before my contract was to end, I was forced to tell Bluniverse if I would renew my contract. I told them no way. The same day, I was leaving the school and was confronted by their corporate lawyer and administrative person from Hefei. They gave me a packet of papers and told me to look them over. When I got home I opened the document and all of the information was in Chinese. My wife is Chinese and she told me that it contained the private chatting sessions of the previous teachers and my old headmaster. I was furious and called them and told them how dirty I considered this to be. They told me that it was only my opinion and they wanted me to know what the other people were really like. This is ethically wrong, if the school has a problem with their employees that information is not for other employees to see. It is none of my business.
5. After working for the school for more than 8 months, the new headmaster tried to have me sign new school rules. Most of the rules were only ways to deduct money for minor infractions. I refused and told them that I had already signed the school rules when I signed their contract. One of the new infractions is for not wearing a company picture ID during training.
6. The headmaster of my school is also the headmaster for another school. The old headmaster quit because of the current reorganization of all the schools under Bluniverse. Anyway, he told all the staff in the other school that he had met me and decided I was not a good man and fired me. When I quit, the school told all of my students that I was ill and unable to teach.
7. One week after I quit, another foreign teacher quit and was threatened on the phone.
This current weekend, the school notified all the students that the school was closed because of the teachers getting ready for testing. The truth is that both of the foreign teachers have had enough of their threats and lies. So, if you are currently working for Bluniverse, just ask for your monthly tax forms. Just so you know, I am not a disgruntled teacher; I am a teacher that refuses to work for bad people.

Promises made to get you to sign mean nothing to them when they tell you to travel 100′s of kms to do stints in remote cities or your housing is a roach hotel or they change class times without telling you… etc., etc., etc..

Bluniverse is trouble for foreign teachers, even the ones who don’t work there anymore.
When you try to arrange a visa with a new employer, expect delays and bad ratings from Bluniverse. This will make it difficult to renew a visa in Hefei.

I needed my new school to submit it’s own reference stating they knew me and they accept responsibility for me.
I know 4 past teachers who have had this very problem, they now work in other provences.

Among many things, I was guaranteed a 5 day working week and was told I would not be required to be within the school outside class times.

The shock came when I landed in Hefei. They had the nerve to tell me AFTER I flew in from the other side of world that I would now have to work 6 days a week, and stay in the office 8 hours a day!!!!.

Now, I have few years of experience in the ESL game, and know what questions to ask and how to ask them. I know this wasn’t just a case of miscommunication. They LIED to get me there, and I assume, they expected me to stay as I spent a good deal of time and money to get there!

Fortunately, I have worked in China before and know that ESL teachers are in demand here. Needless to say, I left on the first available train out of Hefei.
Stay well clear of this school. Bluniverse is bad news!!!!!!!