Site Search:
 
Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today!
Teach English Abroad and Get Paid to see the World!
Job Discussion Forums Forum Index Job Discussion Forums
"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!"
 
 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist   UsergroupsUsergroups   RegisterRegister 
 ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 

Kaplan International Colleges / Al rowdah academy
Goto page 1, 2  Next
 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> United Arab Emirates
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Tomatis



Joined: 20 Jun 2012
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:33 am    Post subject: Kaplan International Colleges / Al rowdah academy Reply with quote

anyone got any experience they want to tell me about with either of these institutions?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nomad soul



Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 11454
Location: The real world

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 10:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Do a search on "Kaplan" and you'll find plenty of negative comments about them.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Tomatis



Joined: 20 Jun 2012
Posts: 8

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2012 9:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

done and appropriate conclusions drawn. thanks
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kdredsea



Joined: 16 Jun 2010
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:57 pm    Post subject: scam. sham. Reply with quote

These people--and i say it with the intended consequence of making them otherwise--are unkind, unhelpful, and mercenary. I and three other people--all highly qualified ESL instructors--were let go by this company for manufactured reasons--before the end of probation--perhaps because we weren't brits, though i can't be sure. I may be unhappy about being let go by them--given the fact of all the time I put in to go there-- but I am not a disgruntled or bitter employee. They lied to all of us from day one--about the length of the commute, and the danger of it; the time to get into our own respective apartments, paid flights, etc. It's a sham of a company, though some I know have stayed on for the money. That will be what you get--they pay on time--but don't got there expecting anything else of wort. or help. or kindness.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lord dobbin



Joined: 26 Nov 2009
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

were you, by any chance, posted to the 'stunning al gharbia campus'?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Gus Barkley



Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Posts: 78

PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 9:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I like the term "mercenary." Having worked for Kaplan in the US (and still have many friends struggling there) "mercenary" is an apt description. Any illusions of producing an educational service went out the window years ago.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kdredsea



Joined: 16 Jun 2010
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Thu Aug 23, 2012 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yes--al-gharbia--lovely, it was. only 1.5 hours each way from A. D. unlike the promised 30 minutes...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Geronimo



Joined: 11 Apr 2007
Posts: 498

PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Abu Dhabi to Al Gharbia road is amongst the most dangerous in the region.
Spending 3 hours per day on it is unenviable!

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/transport/beware-the-sleeping-lorry-drivers and
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/slow-down-and-live-longer-drivers-told

Why were the Al Gharbia teachers unable to locate suitable
accommodation closer to their workplace, kdredsea?

Geronimo
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
iggyb



Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 36

PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 6:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

kdredsea posted the exact same comment on another thread about what seems to be a completely different institution and recruiter...

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=97721
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
lord dobbin



Joined: 26 Nov 2009
Posts: 11

PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 7:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A kaplan recruiter who had a patter like a timeshare salesman also tried to flog al gharbia to me - I was also told it was a thirty to forty minute drive each way and that I would have a private chauffeur (I think all this meant I wouldn't have to drive the bus myself). All my subsequent dealings with Kaplan had the stench of people on commissions saying anything to reach their recruitment targets and I ended up withdrawing my application after a few months of vagueness and apparent ineptitude on their part. The more tales I�ve read and heard, the luckier I feel I didn�t get tied into a three year contract with heavy severance penalties - I�m actually intrigued by the extent of the mismanagement. A former colleague who spent a year under the impression he had a job there and was going to be posted �anytime soon� only to receive a cursory circular email stating that recruitment had closed, has actually gone as far as consulting an employment lawyer about Kaplan�s putative malpractice. I can�t see it going anywhere as he didn�t even get the job in the end, but apparently there is an issue about Kaplan being a fit and proper organisation to be handling personal data and making misrepresentations to potential employees . I think they are registered with the British Council but I am not sure if this implies any standards about how they treat job candidates or even staff. It�s quite amazing how many people one organisation has managed to p*** off.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kdredsea



Joined: 16 Jun 2010
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 10:56 pm    Post subject: same topic, same school. Reply with quote

iggyb wrote:
kdredsea posted the exact same comment on another thread about what seems to be a completely different institution and recruiter...

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=97721


You'll note that Adveti and a whole host of other schools somehow fall under the Kaplan umbrella. The principal of the school, an ADVETI employee with no theoretical power over me, told me (and others who were technically IAT employees) that if we didn't keep our students in our rooms until the end of the period (like cattle) he would fire us forthwith. As an employee at the school in Al-Gharbia, you technically have four different bosses, from four different organizations. Manage that. It's the least-organized organization i have ever worked for, and that is being extremely kind.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
kdredsea



Joined: 16 Jun 2010
Posts: 13

PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2012 11:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Geronimo wrote:
The Abu Dhabi to Al Gharbia road is amongst the most dangerous in the region.
Spending 3 hours per day on it is unenviable!

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/transport/beware-the-sleeping-lorry-drivers and
http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/slow-down-and-live-longer-drivers-told

Why were the Al Gharbia teachers unable to locate suitable
accommodation closer to their workplace, kdredsea?

Geronimo


Because there is no suitable housing there within the accommodation allowance. If they tell you something different that is a flat-out lie, but they are good at that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
iggyb



Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 36

PostPosted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 3:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
Kaplan International Colleges has established an international college in partnership with the Institute of Applied Technology (IAT) and Abu Dhabi Vocational Education and Training Institutes (ADVETI) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). IAT and ADVETI offer career-based technical education at the secondary and tertiary levels to meet the industrial and technical challenges and requirements that will allow UAE national students to move on to pursue their careers in the higher technologies.
http://m.jobs.guardian.co.uk/job/4490303/?FullDescription=True

www.actvet.ac.ae

So, is Kaplan involved with all these institutes? At the ACTVET site I see IAT and ADVETI but nothing about Kaplan.

Oh well. Like I wrote elsewhere, I made it through Korea in the late 1990s, during the devaluation of the Won and the crash of the Asian Tiger economies, a time when the hakwon industry was at its worst.

In short, I'm durable.

And I always keep enough money for a quick flight home is worse comes to worst...I've never had to use it, and I did go through an institute that went bankrupt three months after I arrived. Very unpleasant times...But I navigated through it and stayed on for 2 more years...

I wouldn't like being threatened with being fired, but I could hear a principle in a school back home warn about letting students out early. Even when it comes to added duties outside the classroom, if you teach back home, that is to be expected, at least in the US.

But, having been through Korea, the question is whether the place is run like a professional, real school or not. If it is highly mismanaged, as hakwons are, and you are not treated like a professional employee, then all those extra things add up in a hurry...

With this new position for me, time will tell, as always. No time left right now to look for something better...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
iggyb



Joined: 19 Aug 2012
Posts: 36

PostPosted: Sat Aug 25, 2012 4:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

As long as my contract benefits are not being robbed, the key problem for me in Korea was the number of in-class hours.

The only time extra meetings or duties got to me was when I already had a 35-40+ hour schedule of actual classes.

Any tacked on time was a big pain if you were already exhausted with no energy for planning...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
republocrat



Joined: 14 May 2010
Posts: 70
Location: Stuck in Traffic on Airport Road

PostPosted: Mon Aug 27, 2012 8:01 pm    Post subject: KRAPLAND again!! Reply with quote

Krapland do fully know that their reputation is as low as a rhino's ass, but they don't seem too bothered. They figure that there'll always be teachers desperate to work in the ME, so why try going for quality?

A Brit colleague of mine had a nice little anecdote to tell about Kraplan. A couple of years back he applied for a UAE teaching post via their UK recruiter, who duly called him and gave him a short but professional 'filter interview' just to make sure he wasn't a total fruitcake (he was interested in working for Kaplan, after all, which in itself is almost an admission of madness).

They promised that one of the UAE schools would soon contact him, and so they did - after more than a a month had gone by, and he had found a better post. He had also had time to do an internet search on them, and that was what made his decision for him.

When he informed the interviewer (who had called an hour later than arranged) that he was no longer interested in working for them, as he had read so much bad stuff about them on the web, the interviewer became quite annoyed. There then passed a period of about a month in which Krapland contacted him every other day, almost begging him to change his mind, and dismissing the bad news on the web as the work of a handful of malcontents. Even the UK recruiters got back in touch and tried to reassure him that Krapland are a serious employer.

Which, as everybody knows, is a long way from the truth.

No, I would avoid these bunch of cowboys. And if I ever meet somebody who actually works for them and has ONE good word to say, I'll eat that rhino.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> United Arab Emirates All times are GMT
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page is maintained by the one and only Dave Sperling.
Contact Dave's ESL Cafe
Copyright © 2018 Dave Sperling. All Rights Reserved.

Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2002 phpBB Group

Teaching Jobs in China
Teaching Jobs in China