Students who are studying to teach the Chinese language to non-Chinese speakers may be facing a not-so-clear future in terms of full-time or even stable employment.

According to a report by China Daily, students majoring in the course called Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages (TCSOL), are having limited prospects of landing a full-time job.

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For example, Li Guo, 26, a graduate student taking up her master's degree at BLCU spent one year in Peru to teach Chinese.

Until now, she has yet to find a full-time job. Li is on her seventh-year in the University's TCSOL program.

Li told China Daily that none of the girls living in the same dorm with her, who are also students of TCSOL, have found a teaching job.

"Most of them are signing job contracts that are closely related to their major," Li told China Daily in an interview.

According to Shi Jiawei, former director of the Beijing Language and Culture University's (BLCU) TCSOL department and current professor, in the past three years, majority of the program's graduates have yet to end up working full-time.

Less than 10 percent of TCSOL graduates have been employed in jobs that are closely related to what they took up in college.

Forty percent of those who can't find employment would opt to continue studying at the graduate level.

Shi said that the TCSOL has been popular among liberal arts majors and remains very attractive to outstanding candidates.

However, Shi admits that the program is having problems with sending students out to jobs that would fit their academic training and background.

She gave two reasons for the TCSOL students' difficulty of getting a job after graduation.

First, she said that the program aims to cultivate and prepare students to become Chinese teachers to foreign students. Today, a teaching position in any university requires a Phd.

Second, students who take up TCSOL are planning to teach overseas. Getting a visa becomes one of the biggest hurdles graduates of the program face.

More often than not, TCSOL graduates opting to teach abroad don't have the requirements needed such as relevant teaching certificates and experience.

Recognizing that getting accepted to teach in foreign universities is a tall order, some TCSOL students remain willing to teach the Chinese language in private language schools. However, most of these schools prefer teaching experience than a master's degree.

TagsBLCU, Chinese-Teaching course, employment