Job Discussion Forums

[Nargile57]

Crystal balls aside, what are my chances of getting quick employment in January?
I have five years EFL exp behind me from Turkey back in the 1980s.
I also have a TEFL diploma from 1987.
Obviously I will be a little rusty, but I do know what I am doing in a classroom.
I prefer to teach adults or teenagers.
Which schools should I apply to - and how much salary could I expect?
Like I mentioned before, I really need a quick start - with plenty of hours.
Many thanks.

[veiledsentiments]

No crystal ball here, but... looking at your criterion and lack of current experience or credentials... I'd guess not so good.

Quick? probably not...

plenty of hours? not from one employer... perhaps multiple employers and privates... ie lots of hustling on your part.

Maybe... but don't count on it...

VS

[Nargile57]

Hmmm - how about ıf İ started at somewhere like Sakkara?

[veiledsentiments]

They are a foot in the door so that you would have a paycheck (albeit small) while you scope things out. Sakkara seems to often be hiring, so it is worth a try.

VS

[mishmumkin]

Sakkara is an option-not bad for a 1/2 year, I suppose. Try Choueifat Cairo. Not bad at the primary level (or KG 1, 2 and Grade 1 are decent, too), bigger paycheck, your air ticket paid. You might even get a prorated summer salary if you play your cards right.

[teacherincairo]

January is not a bad time to look for teaching gigs at international schools in Cairo. Lots of teachers manage hang on for the first semester, then bail. So there are definitely openings for the second semester at many schools. Now would be the time to send your CV to every international school in Cairo. There are lots of them and a few minutes digging around Google should give you plenty of email addresses and web sites.

I can�t comfortably recommend any specific schools. But� be careful with schools that are perpetually hiring. This means they�re constantly losing staff, not a good thing. Try to find out how many expats are teaching at the school. An international school that has a 99% Egyptian teaching staff is a school that is educating on the cheap. The same goes for schools that only hire on-line. (In other words they don�t go to any of the hiring fairs.) Now obviously any hiring done mid-year will have to be via the internet and maybe a quick phone interview, but if you look at a school�s web site and see they do not hire through ISS, UNI, SA� they are probably financially very tight or maybe not allowed to recruit through the traditional channels due to some misdeed.

In Egypt a teaching certificate is not really as important as the color of your skin and most importantly the color of your passport. ESL experience is definitely a plus, but any college degree will do. Unfortunately, as you�ll be coming in mid-year you�ll probably not get the same pay as an overseas hire would. You�ll probably/hopefully make more than an Egyptian teacher. You�ll be competing against a lot of, for lack of a better term, expat Egyptians. For example at my school we had five Egyptian-American teachers. None of them had ever taught a day in their life before coming to my school, but they had a blue passport and a college degree. They were paid about half or much less of what I was making. It�s important to be flexible. One of the Egyptian-American teachers at my school had a degree in economics, but was hired to teach English. Another had a degree in English, but was teaching calculus. (Go figure.)

As far as pay goes, I can�t help you much, but I�d ask for around 6,000 pounds a month. (That may be a bit high, I don�t know.) Which is a bit over $1,000 a month. My wife, who had no teaching experience and a degree in Middle East Studies, was hired to teach kindergarten English and middle school science and her pay was 6,000 pounds. She was not supposed to get a living allowance, but through some accounting snafu did get the same amount as me. She did not get a flight home or any other perks.

[mishmumkin]

I recall Sakkara paying around 3500-4000 LE and providing shared accommodation. They would not likely bother processing a proper work visa if you were hired in the middle of the year. What does this mean (aside from illegality)? You'll not be entitled to the greatly reduced rate at hotels and tourist sites given to Egyptians and official foreign residences. Someone recently told me that everyone now pays the same domestic air rate (used to be different costs for residents/Egyptians vs. tourists).

If you had a bit of teaching experience but no degree, you might try Al Bashaer School (Who were recently hiring), Sakkara, MAYBE American International School, El Alsson, New Horizon, and Choueifat. My experience was that Choueifat paid more than most schools willing to hire non-qualified teachers ($18,500 annually paid in USD-not common in Egypt-but their accommodation is shared and on their campus located far from city centre, infrastructure, and taxi access). Most reputable schools do not unqualified teachers, and those that do try and get them on the cheap.