Job Discussion Forums

[Hsinchuguy]

I've applied to and gotten some interest from ACE. The pay and conditions seem good. Does anyone have any experience with them as an employer?

[Skyblue2]

I know them pretty well. They are the only professional outfit in town (they were recently accredited by NEAS, I think). They pay a bit over the odds and have smaller than average classes. They might be considered demanding compared to other places. Still, it's Cambodia, so don't expect to come away with much in terms of savings.

[Cal_Ger]

Can anybody elaborate a bit more the ACE? What does 'considered demanding' mean? In what way, how, example would help

[Skyblue2]

I mean your work will be held to higher standards. You will be observed. If you screw up, you will be held accountable (e.g. lateness, absence, providing too much time to complete a test, or otherwise mismanaging the administration of tests, etc.). You will have to fill in paperwork related to every class you teach (e.g. what you've covered in each lesson).

The pay is about 30% higher than other places, though some of the better universities can match their pay. But you almost always only get hourly, so your week off after each term is unpaid, and they give only a maximum of about 22 hours per week. If you're new, you might be on less. And then there are the public holidays, which are also unpaid.

Also, you will have no say over the way those hours are organized. You may be in for 6:30 a.m. starts, or very late finishes. Plus, they are open for half a day on Saturday, so you may have to work weekends.

You have to pay your own relocation costs, housing costs, insurance costs, and visa costs. So you won't do well financially in Cambodia, but if you're a serious teacher (min. CELTA and first degree and experience) then ACE is your best bet.

I'm not knocking the place. It's the best there is there. I'm just giving you what I know, so you can make up your own mind.

[spitshined]

I've heard there is a waiting place at ACE in Phnom Penh.

What is the best way to apply? Visit in person?

And I wonder how long a wait would be if hired?

[the lowlander]

ACE is a job for the backpackers only.

It's not a position for anyone seeking a genuine career in Cambodia.

Although having said that, nowhere really is.

But.... back to ACE.... yes.... on the surface, it takes itself very seriously, but class teachers mark their own student's exams (unpaid overtime) and the word from the top is "no-one fails", unless they are in a so called "gatekeeping" class.

The words Mickey and Mouse could easily be at home together here.

Truthfully, it's just another very run of the mill, shoddy, profit based, private language school, centering mostly on "Headway", or other bits of various textbooks that they have photocopied and bound in a very "cobbled together" way.

Needless to say, these cobbled together books don't have a teacher's book, so you have to interpret them for yourself. If you can. And you might have an entire three month class based on this material.

As they proudly tell you, "There is no copyright law in Cambodia".

So much for their integrity!

This coming from one of the co-owners of IELTS.

They even photocopy many of the Headway textbooks they sell to their students. Students can buy the original for one price, or the photocopy for another.

I wonder what Oxford University Press would make of that?

And of course, the way they treat copyright is indicative of the way they will treat you too.

Unless you're on a full-time contract (which you won't be in your first term) you are only paid for the hours you teach.

There's no housing, no nothing....and I mean nothing.

The timetable is a totally, frightening, nightmare, and you can easily find yourself teaching six days a week.....with one Saturday class of around 5 hours..... or you may also find yourself starting at 8am in the morning and finishing at 7.30pm in the evening.

If you're totally unlucky, there are classes that start at 6am, and others that finish at 9pm.

You have no choice over the hours that you teach, or the level of the students.

You might find yourself teaching young learners at 6 am, and finish up the day teaching adults at 9pm.

If you manage to avoid the 5 hour class, then there's a very good chance that you will be landed with a 2.5 hour class....there is a 15 minute, break, but they actually deduct that from your wages....if you're not teaching, you don't get paid, but having said that, they still expect you to do substantial unpaid overtime marking exams.

All of the other classes are 90 minutes, without a break.

On the unpaid thing....Cambodia has the most amount of public holidays in the world. There can be several days in one month. These are unpaid.

And you are taxed too.

No sick-pay either.

Then there is a two week break between each three month term...this is also unpaid.

If you actually stick it out for a couple of terms and get offered a full-time contract, then the holidays and breaks are covered.

The downside of this is that you are expected to put in 40 hours on-site, which includes 20 hours in one of the most cramped and ghastliest teacher's rooms I have ever seen in my lengthy career.

You are given a small spot on a long shared bench with "pigeon holes" for your paperwork, and maybe 8 computers between 60 + staff.... everyone crammed together in rows separated by high pigeon hole walls....not nice.....and I mean it....it's really not nice...and it's noisy....very noisy....it's like some sort of old time post office sorting house that got married to a really dingy prison block and made a baby.

It's not the sort of place you want to spend 20 hours of enforced doing nothing, or trying to plan a lesson.

And if you don't like cliques, then this is not the place for you.

ACE is the sort of outfit where a significant portion of the ex-pat teachers will look the other way when you try to say hello to them in the corridor.

I'm sure that many of you will have come across this breed before, and for some reason they seem to have established a major base camp at ACE. It could be something to do with the high turnover of teachers, another aspect of this company, but who knows.

Anyway, it was the least friendly, and most unwelcoming place that I have ever worked.

It's a real experience, but not in a good way.

If you're in Cambodia with nothing better to do, it might be worth a whirl, but if you're considering relocating in search of a career, I think you will be sadly disappointed, and I would strongly recommend against it.

[sushikurva]

Lowlander...

While many of the things you say are true, your outlook seems quite skewed and focused on the negative aspects-- lists of small things which happen in any job. I worked there and had a good time, never had any trouble with nightmare timetables, was offered a contract in my second term.... it seemed like the sort of place where if you were reliable and had something to offer then you could do well.

Yes, staff room at both branches a bit wierd and cramped and hard to get used to, lol. I also noticed what seemed to be aloof other teachers and cliqueiness, but it was explained to me that since there are so many people passing through who only stay for a term or two (backpackers+celta are frequently employed because there is a shortage of people there and it's a big school), the people who have been there a while don't make much of an effoert until you've been there for a bit. Once I made the effort, I found the other teachers there to be quite nice and helpful.

And come on....career? Cambodia? What school would one work at if for such a thing?

All in all I found it to be a fair and relatively pleasant place to work that paid better than nearly everywhere else.

Also, some of the best students I've ever taught were in the pre-daparture program there-- actually i take it back-- some of those classes were the closest i've ever experienced to what i would consider 'career' calibre work in more than a decade of teaching in lots of different places.

I would highly recommend ACE.

[the lowlander]

Hi there Sushikurva,

My outlook is negative because I had a very negative experience there.

They do have a nightmare timetable, and it's entirely the luck of the draw what hours you end up with. I knew people who were starting at the crack of dawn, and finishing late at night. I was in a similar situation myself.

The day seemed never ending.

I also knew teachers who had been allotted a six day week timetable (no choice) which included a 5 hour class on a Saturday. If that's not a nightmare, I don't know what is.

As for doing well, doing well means that you get a full-time contract, and are then imprisoned in that ghastly place for 40 hours per week!

And the money still isn't anything to write home about, even on a full-time contract.

As I said myself, there is nowhere for any serious career building in Cambodia, it's for backpackers, and backpackers only, and ACE is no exception to this.

There is also a huge turnover of teachers, who only stay for one term, which we both agree is the case. That doesn't happen for no reason. Crazy timetabling, awful premises, office hours, aloof colleagues, and no money or benefits are certainly major factors in many of these early departures.

If you're a backpacker in PP with nothing better to do, give it a go, but under no circumstances relocate yourself halfway around the world for this gig.

You will be sadly disappointed if you do.

It's nothing more than a private language mill with a lot of issues that badly need to be addressed.

[sushikurva]

Just curious... when were you there? I know that those things happen, like they do in most places, I just don't think that it's the norm-- I knew quite a few of the teachers well and nobody had any of the problems that you describe. Granted, most of these people had been there a while and so I'm sure the school is willing to acommodate people who have demonstrated that they're going to be around for a while, but what school doesn't operate in this way?

Yes, there are early classes (some people prefer the 6 am start and and actually volunteer for them, i cannot imagine why...) and you might get unlucky and get stuck teaching them from time to time. Yes, 5 hours is a lame amount of time for a class, but most schools have classes like this. I also had the long day you describe, begining at 930 and finishing at 730, but it was 3 days aweek and the other two days i worked from 5:30-8. Saturday classes, when i was theer, were generally taught by people who wanted to teach 27 hours per week. I was asked what i wanted to teach and my preferences were taken into consideration each term. It sounds like your experience was different, but can you say that it's the norm? From what I knew of the other teachers ther, I don't think so.

I was paid about 1900 a month after tax (people who had been there for a few years were making closer to 2300), I never spent a full 40 hours in the office, usually closer to 35, and my boss knew that and was fine with it. While not many people come to Cambodia to make money, with the low cost of living you can live well and save money on that salary. Other than Zaman University, I don't know of anywhere else in PP that pays near that.

Also, I don't think that the turnover problem is all that related to problems at the school-- I think it's the teachers-- not to blame them, they just seemed to be a transient bunch (including myself at that time), passing through on the way to somewhere else. Most of the people i knew who left after a term or two left because they wanted to go somewhere else, not because of any particular problem they were having with the school. Maybe that's Cambodia...


Maybe you had a bad experience there, which really is unfortunate. I just don't think that the picture you paint is representative of what the average teacher there experiences, and that on the whole it's a decent school to work at. I know lots of people there who have ben there for years and are happy to be there. Assuming I was treated the same as when I worked there, it's one of the few places I would consider returning to without reservation.

[the lowlander]

I was there recently, and I didn't meet anyone who didn't have something to grumble about. Well, certainly among those teachers who would actually talk to me.

Overall, I don't think it's a very happy ship and I found the overriding atmosphere to be very gloomy.

Having said that, I don't doubt that you had an enjoyable time there, as everyone is different and it's possible to have different experiences, but wild horses wouldn't drag me back to that place under any circumstances.

As I said before, I would recommend it to anyone in PP with nothing better to do, but I would strongly caution against relocating to PP just to work for ACE.

That's my main point really, ACE is not worth uprooting yourself for, but it's just about tolerable if you're only passing through.

[sigmoid]

Also, just curious sushikurva - when were you there and what happened, i.e. why don't you work there now if it is such a good school?

[the lowlander]

They do deduct the 15 minute break from your wages.

I estimated it was costing me around $60 (plus) per month, depending on how many non-working days there were.

This "if you don't work, you don't get paid" attitude could be seen as fair enough, but it really bugged me because they expect teachers to put in a substantial amount of unpaid overtime marking exams and entering them into the database at the end of each term.

When you consider the fact that you might have 100+ students over five classes, doing four exams each, all of which have to be marked and then individually entered into the computer database by the class teacher, then we are talking about a lot of unpaid hours.

But they they still want to deduct money from your scheduled breaks in over-long classes, all of which are timetabled by them!

It seems to me that ACE clearly want to have it both ways, at the teacher's expense, and this particular double standard was instrumental in helping to form my negative attitude towards them.

[sushikurva]

[the lowlander]

You may call it whingeing......I call it talking honestly about personal experiences.

[Filmstar]

I worked at ACE for 2 years. They observe you once. Salaries are good ($20 per hour) twice almost everywhere else, always paid on time, sometimes even early. Cash advances on salaries are easily obtained no questions asked, providing you're in credit. 99% of students are super friendly and super motivated. The only paperwork is your time sheet every month which takes 5 minutes. Prep is left up to you. No one's looking over your shoulder. If students complain about you it is taken seriously, but if you're a committed teacher with a strong work ethic and care about your student's learning ACE is not only an easygoing place but also a great place to work. Khmer staff are also very friendly if you take the time to get to know them. It's true that you are expected to mark exam papers once a term (unpaid) which may take between 3 and 5 hours depending on how fast you are. However, the pros far outweigh the cons. 1 month salary works out at about $1,500 - $1,800 a month depending on holidays. You can live in luxury in Cambodia on that. There are also opportunities to work elsewhere in Cambodia like Siem Reap where the temples are. I would ignore any negative comments on here and give it a whirl if you're offered a position. Contracts are only 3 months so you can make up your own mind.