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LettersAthruZ
Joined: 25 Apr 2010
Posts: 466
Location: North Viet Nam
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 Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 11:17 am Post subject: |
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| I'm With Stupid wrote: |
| kurtz wrote: |
The reality is, you're leaving a clean, modern country like Australia with good schools, reasonable health care, an established welfare system and a high quality of life and you're going to a developing country, possibly to do a low-paid job that you have no idea how to do. If you're serious about teaching, I'd do a Dip.Ed so you can get a proper job in a proper school, not some crummy EFL "school", but a real International School that pays a wage that allows you a good lifestyle. I'd like to hear of how many Western people who have made a quality life for themselves in Vietnam teaching EFL; being able to support a wife, put their child through a good school, having money for retirement, living in a multi-room apartment or house and with the option of visiting the home country on a whim.
Most of the ultra-positive posters on here are to my knowledge, single. This affords them a reasonable lifestyle; travel, drinks in good bars and restaurants, but throw in a wife and child and things would change a lot. I've had the misfortune of working in some VN primary schools, diabolical is one word to describe them; imagine 50+ kids copying lines from the blackboard; welcome to the VN education system. |
Yeah, despite what I said above, there's absolutely no way I would raise a kid here. The proper international schools are prohibitively expensive on an ESL salary. To put it in some perspective, the cost of educating one kid from grade 1 at Saigon South International School is $17k a year rising to $21k depending on the age. You could probably raise a kid until school age on a decent ESL salary without too many issues, but beyond that, it really does make sense to bring them to a country with a decent education system unless you have an employer that's willing to pay school fees for you, which you won't as an ESL teacher. I know quite a few teachers with young kids, but I don't know any with school-aged kids. I highly suspect that the ones I do know will be going back to their home countries when their kids reach school age. |
Hafta totally go with Kurtz on this one -
For a single guy or girl, with the freedom and reduced teaching hours Viet Nam offers, it's almost like heaven in a lot of respects (bureaucratic nightmares, corruption and rampant theft aside)......
.....HOWEVER, I do know a few Tay guys who have actually attempted to raise children here - six months to one year in the local schools for their child/children and then they ran screaming with their families back to their Tay nation.
Expat Luke has it spot on - IF you can (eventually?) get a gig at an international school, and get her son in on reduced/free tuition, that would be my only reason to stay here (if I had a child or children), otherwise, I'd be on the next boat with my wife and her son back to Oz!
The international schools here are soooo artificially over-priced, it isn't even funny. From what several multi-national corporate managers who are friends of mine here tell me (who have their child/children enrolled in a couple different International Schools at their Company's expense), it costs the same as an American or European PRIVATE school.......yet the QUALITY of education received at the Vietnamese international schools MIGHT be on par with an American PUBLIC school, and is slightly lower than a European public school.......
.......honestly? I'd get 'em outta here. |
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Tanker
Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 72
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 2:58 pm Post subject: |
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| kurtz wrote: |
| I'd like to hear of how many Western people who have made a quality life for themselves in Vietnam teaching EFL; |
Answer: 0
I've met a couple of single guys who liked to drink a lot. In Saigon then, and now (to a lesser degree), they can still be drunk a lot on "cheap" beer (which is not so cheap anymore) and hold an EFL job by teaching at night. Cheap women and cheap booze was their "quality of life."
That was/is the quality of life they were/are talking about.
The women and booze are not cheap, and even being able to drink yourself silly in the Alley and Bui Vien will get old in a short period of time.
I'm not saying the OP is interested in this. He's not.
But that is the "quality of life," for people who say they are here for quality of life.
Another euphemism for getting drunk every day is "I like to hang out with friends in my free time."
You can rent a room, have a job, and borrow and loan small amounts of money to friends.
I'm not judging: I was one of these guys. No regrets. But there are consequences as the years go by.
Below quote is what a person cannot realistically do. (I know a few who have tried. They left.)
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being able to support a wife, put their child through a good school, having money for retirement, living in a multi-room apartment or house and with the option of visiting the home country on a whim.
blackboard; welcome to the VN education system. |
OP, you could try it out for year....if.....you want a break from your current lifestyle, job, situation at home and then make a decision.
Yes, long distance relationships often involve different situations.
Cheers. |
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I'm With Stupid
Joined: 03 Sep 2010
Posts: 432
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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| ExpatLuke wrote: |
| If you're a teacher at an international school you can often get your kids in for a reduced price or just the price of books. I've met a few foreigners here with school aged children. Most either have their children enrolled in the international school they teach at or home school. I've met 2 families who put their kids in the Vietnamese schools. |
Yeah, I know Saigon South will let you put 2 of your kids in for free. But that's for qualified grade school teachers, not ESL teachers with a 4 week certificate. |
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vabeckele
Joined: 19 Nov 2010
Posts: 439
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| Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 5:46 pm Post subject: Your mummy is a prostitute. |
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Maybe someone could pitch in here, but I would also worry about sending children of mixed blood/or step-children, into Vietnamese schools.
When I consider the general attitude of the parents to single parent mothers who re-marry a foreigner, I wonder how cruel the comments would be in the school playground? Vietnam is 50 years behind in education AND in many social spheres.
Working in within the field of education, as a teacher, is finicky enough and I reckon none more so than within ESL. You have to put up with pretentious (seemingly) well educated westerners telling you there is only one way to teach ESL. Unfortunately, these opinions are like azzholes; yes, you guessed it: everybody has one. Match that with the social, political and economical instability of any developing country, and it is a recipe for madness - then add a family.
In the end we all have to make do and make the best of what we have - For some of us that means raising our kids in Vietnam in local schools with mummy carrying the baby on the back of a moped. Daddy, is of course, an ESL 'professional'.
I'm sailing close to the wind here - peace out. |
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1st Sgt Welsh
Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 946
Location: Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 5:54 am Post subject: |
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| Tigerstyleone wrote: |
| Teaching English in Vietnam is fine if you're semi-retired. |
Not sure why this old chest-nut keeps coming up on this forum. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of 'semi-retired' teachers I know here. The number of teachers I know here who, like the vast majority of people in the world, work because they need to get paid and it is their only real source of income is a very different matter.
I agree to an extent that a position as an entry-level EFL teacher at, for example, VUS is not something I'd necessarily recommend someone to do, [unless they are happy with it], for the next ten years. However, after you get the experience, if you are still just doing an 'entry-level job' at an 'entry-level school', are not happy about it, are not saving enough or getting anywhere then I'd suggest you usually have only yourself to blame.
The British Council and RMIT offer extremely good conditions, comparable to what you find in most of our home countries [but in a country with a low cost of living], and chances for advancement. They are not small organizations either and jobs do come up. There are also plenty of opportunities for privates and IELTS examining and, over time, this can add up to a substantial nest egg if you have the work ethic. As has been mentioned, there are also international schools for certified teachers.
There have also been a lot of talk on this thread about the cost of education for children and, I agree, the cost of sending your children to international schools here, unless you are working at one, is exorbitant to the point of being, in my view, a complete rip-off! If I ever do have children, (which is looking pretty unlikely at this stage), to be honest, I'd probably go back to Australia. Having said that, I wonder what percentage of our compatriots in our home countries could afford to pay the equivalent of international school fees here either. I know my parents certainly wouldn't have been able to.
Last edited by 1st Sgt Welsh on Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:06 am; edited 1 time in total |
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mark_in_saigon
Joined: 20 Sep 2009
Posts: 837
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| Posted: Sun Feb 24, 2013 6:02 am Post subject: |
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| My Aussie friend tells me that the rules in Oz really make it a huge gamble to bring a wife over, she can really hammer him financially. It should also be pretty clear that more often than not, these deals do not work out long term, esp when bringing her to the west. This relationship subject starts to get off the reservation here and eventually disappears, even though it is a big part of life here. The most important aspects of this cannot be discussed in necessary detail directly. Many experienced and dispassionate observers would say that based on the info you have posted, you would be making more than one major mistake to pursue this situation, at all. Other sites that relate to this kind of topic have lots of detail on why, which tends to be ignored by guys over and over, which is why most of them up with these terrible outcomes. |
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