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VPN for Teaching

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nomis

New Around Here
Hi there,
I'm an English teacher who works for a school in China but I'm British and live in London. I teach my students online.

The problem is that there is a new Chinese policy coming in that will make it impossible for Chinese students to study with teachers who are based outside of China.

As you probably know, China has a history of blocking selected foreign websites, so I don't think blocking foreign teachers will be difficult for them.

I've used VPNs before while staying in China, but what I was wondering was if there is a kind of VPN that would allow students to connect with me in London but to appear that they were connecting with someone else in China?
 
Welcome to the forums @nomis.

I would be looking for a new student base. There are no great outcomes here, no matter what the tech may (seem to) provide (in the short term).
 
The only way I could see possible for this to work would be to run your own VPN server somewhere in China, connect to it, and also have the students also connect to that server. This way, their connection will be to mainland China, and it won't be visible who else is connected within that private network.

None of the commercial VPN providers that I know would allow something like that, you'd need to find someone to host a server within China, and for that server to be open enough to allow inbound connections from outside of China. Which is probably also a challenge in itself.

I suspect there's no good way to do this. China is trying really hard to isolate their population from the outside world. And who knows what problems these students may be facing if they were caught...
 
I have business contacts in China. Businesses operating in China have to get government approval in order to use VPN. With no clearance someone may end up with hefty fine and even jail time, depending on what part of China we are talking about. This is no joke and the locals know.
 
The technology to resolve the issue is called an airplane, it seems, based on earlier replies. What do your employers suggest?

or - Will they give you a good reference? This is along the lines of what @L&LD suggested...

turn it around: start teaching Cantonese/Mandarin to English speakers/their children. that might be a better long-term prospect considering the shifting world/changing empires.
Actually a little surprised you didn't think of that yourself - if you're the bidirectional interface, send traffic the OTHER way. 180 degree turn, Art of War-like, turning obstacle into ally/tool/weapon: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"
 

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