Job Discussion Forums

[astonished]

Dear colleagues,
I am considering an offer from Mazoon College. Can anyone give me feedback/info. about the place, students, admin, professional life, work environment, treatment etc.. Thank you.

[mci]

From what I understand of Mazoon College, it depends if you are going to be involved with the academic courses or the language center. The academic side seems to have problems, the usual I think, with admin. and support while the language center is quieter and left to its own with a calm and pleasant director.

I don't know details of salary but at the college level in Muscat, I would expect about 700-800 with accomodation. The students are pleasant but under-skilled and struggle to adapt to academic standards. I've heard that the admin. want to keep your passport which you should (must) flat out refuse - or at least make up excuses like you lost it or something.

Anyway, this is all hearsay - the main building is nice but the language center is in another location. All in all, Muscat is a nice place to work so if the contract looks ok for your experience and qualifications, it's a good opportunity.

mci

[veiledsentiments]

Just one thing that I would add is that I do not believe that they offer accomodation. So, if you have an MA or CELTA with 3+ years of experience teaching related Academic English - esp reading and writing - or with Arabic speakers, do not even consider less than 800 a month. Rent, phone, electric and internet will cost at least 200.

VS

[mxolisi]

Dear Astonished

I was astonished to read the reply you got! It bears no comparison with reality.

This is a horrible place. ALL staff members of the Dept. of English who were recruited last year have resigned due to the inefficiency, incompetence, and unprofessionalism of the administration. The professional American ex-dean was fired last year. If I were you, I would ask them to send me a copy of the contract before you set foot here. It is a medieval contract and, of course, this is not reflected in the offer they send you in advance. It has about 11 clauses that contravene labour laws.

When you arrive in Muscat, the PRO guy will be waiting for you at the airport. He does not know a word of English. You will be taken to a hotel and nobody will contact you. You will be expected to leave the hotel after a week, during which you are expected to find a flat on your own. Nobody from HR will help at all. And your passport will expropriated as soon as you arrive in the country, in accordance with the contract! But according to Omani Labour Law it is illegal for anyone or any company to insist on holding a person�s passport. In point of fact it is your own property. In addition, you also have to ask for permission to leave the Sultanate of Oman.

If you teach in Dept. of English, you need to know that you will share an office with 11 teachers. This so-called �office� has three �ancient� computers that are out of order 5 days a week. The language spoken in the office is Hindi. The HOD is an ex-monk who has a degree in Theology(!) and knows nothing about ESL and literature. Due to his lack of professionalism, he abuses his power. He has had problems with every single staff member and has played a role in the decision of those who have decided to resign.

The assistant head is a man who has no idea that colonialism is a matter of the past! He still believes that he is in the country to �civilize� the �backward natives!� With the HOD, they make a terrible couple. They are the ones whose signatures you have to get, if you want to leave for a weekend and need to get your passport from the college�a very undignifyied process.

You will also be expected, whether you have a PhD or a master�s degree, to punch a working card every day. Exactly like workers in factories, and they will check your card every week.

As for the building, it is for the admin. The teaching takes place in caravans covered with asbestos.

Back to the contract: Most lecturers repeatedly say that if that if they had received the contract, which is usually presented to you three or four weeks after your arrival, when they are supposed to have done, according to Omani Labour Law, before arriving in the Sultanate of Oman, then they would not have been prepared to sign.

Level of students: very bad. But you are expected�read forced�to pass most of them. Some of those who fail will pass even without your consent.

Salary: very bad. You will find out that your �basic salary� is almost half of your monthly salary and that the rest is made up of �House rent allowance,� and of �Other allowances�. But they do not pay for accommodation! Service gratuity is half a basic salary at the end of each contractual year.
Teaching in the summer is compulsory and you are not paid for it.


Tickets: ask them to send you the ticket. It will take a long time to get the reimbursement.

Support: none whatsoever.

The nice staff members either left (two Brits) or have tendered their resignation. It took me less than a month to understand that what they need is not academics, but rather slaves. I resigned after two months, but have been in touch with those unfortunate enough to stay until the end of their one-year contract. And the stories they are telling me are just unbelievable.

So, if you were desperate for this job, just ask for a copy of the contract, read it carefully; ask about your passport (which is the sole property of your government) and whether they will insist on keeping it; ask about accommodation; ask about your office and PC. And if you are a woman, ask about your privacy!

The Omani people are friendly, warm and simple, but their businesspeople are revolting human beings. Stay away for your own good.

[veiledsentiments]

mxolisi

Didn't I just read you doing a rant on another employer that you have just left in Qatar? I'm seeing a pattern here and as I said on the Qatar board, it is a good thing that you are leaving the Middle East. Your luck here has been terrible. But, starting out your experience by accusing the previous posters of lying does not speak well of you. Basically because there was no inaccurate information in those posts

As to other readers on here, most of his (?) details are likely accurate. The small private colleges around the Gulf can have situations that change dramatically year to year with staffing and management changing. It is buyer beware. There can a rapid decline if a good manager departs, but the changes to the positive always seem to take longer.

This is an example of why I have always suggested that people have an MA and a few years of experience before coming to Gulf. Then they will be eligible for the more dependable employers.

VS

[Stephen Jones]

Dear Veiled

Some years back I was comparing CVs with a colleague at a far from stellar school in Kuwait, and I commented on the fact that seven jobs in seven years didn't look that trustworthy.

"If you'd worked in the places I had you wouldn't have stayed for more than a year, either!" was his comment.

There is an unfortunate pattern here; the crappy schools have a mass exodus every year and as a result they are the ones with all the vacancies. So the odds are about ten to one in favour of getting a bad job over a good one.

[veiledsentiments]

Of course you are completely correct Stephen, but I suspect that you have also known a few teachers who had changed jobs with shocking regularity... and the problem was not the employers.

It also seems that these marginal schools tend to hire people with lower qualifications and credentials... and soon it becomes a pattern... a spiral ever downward.

Sad really, because Mazoon started off quite well.

VS

[Stephen Jones]

[ctmiezio]

I was also offered a job at Mazoon though now I must say mxolisi
has spooked me a bit. Is Mazoon really that bad? I read mxolisi's other posts and it souns like he/she has had a generally negative experience in the Gulf.... sometimes one person doesn't adapt well, while another person enjoys himself quite a bit... this being said, there isn't much positive to read about Mazoon in this forum (and I'm not suggesting I doubt you mxolisi).

Now there aren't many jobs posted for Oman on Dave's. so my question re Mazoon is this... Oman and Muscat sound like a really nice place to work, and I'm wondering if the tradeoff between a negative work environment and a nice city would be worth it.

I have a PhD and so I presume I'd be working in the office where Hindi is the primary language and we have to use punch-cards every day... aaag...

[mci]

Have you tried Sultan Qaboos University? They seem to hire every year - I'm sure you could get some interest with the PhD.

Muscat is a great place so the trade off might be worth it - but if it really sucks then it can wear you down.

I've heard similar stories coming out of Mazoon but I think mxolisi has just not figured out how to deal with these kinds of situations which are common. I know some teachers in the academic side of Mazoon who get along quite well.

mci

[veiledsentiments]

ctmiezio,

It is really difficult for someone else to judge how 'work problems vs decent life out of work' works for someone else. I vary on the answer to that for myself daily.

In all the places that I have worked, the problems of the EFL department did not seem to affect the academic area. The reality is that many of these places consider us English teachers to be low on the pecking scale and not worthy of respect... unlike PhDs.

As I recall, this is your first move to the Middle East. If you can last a couple years punching a time clock, you have something to put on your CV for the better unis. And I have to say that the vast majority of the Hindi or Urdu or Arabic speaking professors I knew through the years were lovely people to work with and certainly caused far fewer problems and aggravations in the workplace than my fellow Westerners in EFL.

I suspect that patience and a sense of humor can get you through a couple of years and you will have the weekends and holidays to explore a fascinating country. And there is the plus of mostly great students - not necessarily academically speaking - but definitely enjoyable to teach.

VS

[ctmiezio]

Thanks MCI and Veiled Sentiments.

[Integrity1]

This is a message of WARNING to anybody considering a teaching post in the English department at Mazoon College.

SUCCINCTLY PUT AND QUITE SIMPLY: DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER THIS COLLEGE. THAT IS IF YOU HAVE ANY SENSE.

I shall preface this message by confirming that, by and large, but with many other caveats, the account given by "mxolisi" is very, very accurate. Especially in relation to the Head of the English department, the Acting Dean, the generally appalling treatment and the farcical Contract, which amounts to nothing short of slave labour. (edited by mod)

The Mazoon "generic" contract! :

Further to mxolisi's account I can and should add the following for your information:

Article 24 states that "articles" can be amended or added by mutual agreement between the employer and the employee, and which then form an inseparable part of the contract. But this is untrue, as neither the Dean nor the Human Resources manager will compromise on any of the articles. What's more, they are very protective of their "contract", and vehemently insist that they are acting within Omani Labour law. But this is, as mxolisi pointed out, and as I shall continue to demonstrate is also untrue.

And just let me add at this point that, according to Omani Labour Law, a new employee is meant to receive their full contract before they arrive in the Sultanate, but that you will be encouraged to get yourself out there, in good faith in the hope...etc., etc. DO NOT LET THIS COLLEGE ABUSE YOUR DESIRE TO ACT IN GOOD FAITH...And I would seriously recommend against accepting this sort of post on the flimsy justification (no disrespect) that Muscat is a fun place to be...yes for a few months maybe, but then it becomes a matter of dealing with the reality of a simultaneous imbalance of attrition where the Mazoon abuse, tyrannical behaviour, unprofessionalism, unkindness, pretension, game playing, manipulation and cajoling...not to mention the lack of support, can no longer be mollified and kept at bay, even by those with the most fortitudinous of constitutions, by an ever decreasing amount of interesting places to go in which to let off steam...or perhaps better put an ever increasing amount of places which become tarnished by the colours of Mazoon corruption which permeate into the whole psyche of your honesty.

On the point of the basic salary: the contract makes it clear that your basic is only half of what you will be told in your offer letter/email. And that as mxolisi points out the rest is made up of what they consider to be the correct amount for your housing allowance, and "other allowance". Well apart from the fact that it is unacceptable to be told what the money you earn is for, there is an important ramification here. It essentially means that the yearly service gratuity which they bang on about as being half a month's salary for the first three years and then a month's salary for each year after that really does not amount to as much as they would have you believe at the outset.

Article 11 of their contract refers to their claim that it is their right to commandeer your passport, but as mxolisi has stated this is not true, even though the Human Resources Manager will swear until he's red in the face that that is not true. This is one sure sign, that you are putting your well-being into the hands of charlatans! But then of course if you do not care about things like this then go for it, and as mxolisi mentioned you will have the pleasure of having to deal with the double-edged sword of vice aka (Acting Dean and HOD) for permission to leave. On a point of permission, the former also purveys the masochistic rules of a militarist so if you're in to that form of obsequiousness in the work place go for it. But I warn you this man is immoral, and his sole concern is maintaining some form of superiority, and he uses threats, especially of sacking you, to keep you under control. Fortunately, he's not very bright, and knows very little about education. In fact he is probably the worst charlatan at Mazoon. So ask yourself do you really want to be surrounded by these sorts of people!? Any sensible person is of course going to say no, not even for the experience.

Another point on the contract is that you are asked to give three months notice of your intention to leave while Mazoon reserve the right to give one month.

But the most heinous article in the contract is Article 16 (3), which is tantamount to FORCED LABOUR (that is to say: SLAVERY)...For example, they ask the employee to pay the college for every month that they leave prior to the "per work resumption" which essentially means the following: you will be given a contract with a start date and a finish date on it for the duration of a year, but if you wish to leave before nine months have elapsed you will have to pay Mazoon college, in full, for every month before this nine month threshold. That is, say you want to leave after three months, well you can so long as you give them SIX MONTHS SALARY...This is forced labour because when start and finish dates of a contract are stipulated the employer cannot impose restrictions over and above the agreed notice periods, and certainly not fiscal ones.

The final article in this Mazoon Contract is also home to a terrible lie. Article 26 states that in the case of inconsistency between the two texts the Arabic text shall prevail. This is a lie because according to Omani Labour Law legally and in a court of law both texts are considered equally, and neither one nor the other is more important. That is, precedence and importance are the same.

mxolisi has already exposed the current Head of the English department as being a charlatan...and I can confirm that not only is he a poor educator. (edited by mod)

And just a final point the worst game is that a Mazoon college employee is lured and cajoled into the confidence of one or other of the multifarious coteries at the outset, and informed of all the gossip about all the others, yet the sad fact is that there are many layers of abuse at that college, many layers of insecurity, many aspects which betray the integrity of education, and which essentially amounts to the fact that the students continue to suffer...SHAME ON THIS COLLEGE AND ITS PERVERSIONS... And do not bother going to the Dean either because he has the spine of a snake...

DO YOURSELVES A FAVOUR JUST DO NOT BOTHER WITH THESE PEOPLE AND THIS COLLEGE...GO ELSEWHERE...IF YOU VALUE YOUR PIECE OF MIND, YOUR HEALTH, YOUR WELL-BEING, YOUR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, and your personal and professional integrity.

INTEGRITY1

[astonished]

It is very very serious indeed what has been said about Mazoon College. It scared me a lot. There's no room for doubt that the horendous situation there is created by the axis of failure: inefficiency, unprofessionalism and disdain. Following your advice dear colleagues, I have decided to stay away of this place. I will look elsewhere-there are more fish in the sea.

[jp20030]

The same conditions as Integrity1 described are applicable at Al Rakaib Institute in Muscat who are currently advertising a position on Dave's.
The Operations Manager is involved in a very personal as well as a "professional" working relationship with the owner/Managing Director so if you have a complaint, it's not going to get very far!
BEWARE!!!!!!!