Gotoco: What's the catch? Where can I research this programme?
Most organisations in our sector charge hefty placement fees, sometimes as higher than $5000 for a summer placement. We established Gotoco in order to rebel against this model. It is very rare to find organisations operating in this way, accordingly our applicants often ask questions such as ” is it real”, “what's the catch”, “is it fake”. These are reasonable questions! Our advice is that the best way to investigate a programme like ours is to check its footprint on Google, if you look us up you will find lots of fantastic content posted over the past decade along with reviews, some links are below this FAQ.
Why don't you charge a fee? You can read our mission on the relevant part of this site, but in summary: We make efforts to run this as fully funded as possible, without taking any placement fees from participants, because we think global people-to-people exchange is vitally important. We also believe that having opportunities for adventures and experiences overseas is a vital part of anyone’s education, and so we are delighted to devote our time to running this. These viewpoints motivated us to commit to only ever delivering programmes that are funded. Please check out some reviews, blogs, articles, videos and our social media via the links below. Free means we don’t advertise programmes where participants need to raise funds for participation fees, where costs are needed for us to run this we always offer pre-arranged grants to cover those costs through governments and universities. Our flagship China programme would draw funds through local partnerships and so could be entirely fee-less, our global programmes tend to draw admin funds through pre-arranged grants.
Articles
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2018/mar/28/new-initiative-offers-british-people-summer-camp-jobs-in-china
https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2020/02/16/rock-climbing-and-pottery-in-chao-long-china/
https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2015/11/21/10-weeks-in-china/
https://www.oxfordstudent.com/2019/02/13/representing-the-real-china-oxford-grads-on-starting-their-own-social-enterprise/
Reviews
https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.go-to.co
https://www.facebook.com/gotoco1/reviews/
https://glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/Gotoco-Reviews-E2044609.htm
https://www.gooverseas.com/organization/gotoco-reviews
Blogs
https://www.travelstorysociety.com/post/lost-in-guangzhou
https://www.travelstorysociety.com/post/yearning-for-yangshuo
https://www.travelstorysociety.com/post/how-china-saved-my-mind
https://www.travelstorysociety.com/post/shenzen-new-destination-for-foodies
https://www.travelstorysociety.com/post/two-months-in-a-mob-town
https://www.redbrick.me/tefl-experience-china/
Social Media
instagram.com/gotoco_
facebook.com/gotoco1/
twitter.com/gotocochina/
Linkedin: 2000 people have done our project, many of whom are visible here
Jack Edwards Youtube Channel: a day in the life: teaching english in china (with GoToCo)
Our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHCRbae-hXU