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20 Lecturers Sacked in Ibri
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Roses189



Joined: 09 Jun 2015
Posts: 21
PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 12:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Those figures I quoted earlier were in an attached offer we had to sign and email back. I did question if the 75omr per month for gratuity and airfare were paid over 12 months (including while on annual leave) and they did confirm by email that it would be. I can't get my head around why they would say 30 days annual leave in another email unless it's a typo as 60 is the norm. As far as I know the colleges have always closed for two months at the end of Spring semester. When I started with Hawthorne it was 6 weeks before we started the process to get our resident cards etc. Medicals etc were done during non-teaching hours over the course of a week and it wasn't a big deal. Hopefully Al Nawa follow suit!
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Whatever will be



Joined: 05 Feb 2014
Posts: 303
PostPosted: Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:10 pm    Post subject: Hope dies last Reply with quote
If 30 days of annual leave is offered, it will be in the contract.
If you signed it, you accepted it.

Again, it has become the norm that teachers trade a week's salary for a week's holiday (e.g. commonly in April during semester break). Shortening the annual leave will ensure that some /most/all teachers will salary sacrifice to get a decent break. The money will be flowing back to Al Nawa.

Al Nawa has an established procedure (medical check, biometrics, residency card). Once completed, teachers start work and get paid. Why should they change their routine?

Hawthorn lost the contract. It makes no sense for Al Nawa to follow suit and risk loosing their contract.
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1st Sgt Welsh



Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 946
Location: Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 5:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Personally, if I couldn't get generous holidays then, I, for one, wouldn't have ever considered living in the Gulf. However, that's just my take on it and others, of course, will have different POVs.

Besides, given the ridiculous amount of 'desk-warming' that goes on at the CAS Colleges, for the life of me, I don't see why they would be tampering with the old 60 days' leave entitlement. If they were to add more teaching weeks to the schedule then that would be a different matter, because, at least then, you would actually be serving a purpose. As things stand, they could easily add/have added another three to four weeks leave and, as I've said before elsewhere, all it would do is improve recruitment, morale, staff retention rates and, arguably, the quality of teaching. What benefit is derived by having teachers twiddling their thumbs at their desks for weeks on end is beyond me, but, anyway.....

danshengou wrote:
Those salaries and benefits are awfully low. Just doesn't seem worth it.


I guess it depends. A lot of my friends in Salalah look like they will be trying to stay on with the new company. Many of them are close to retirement age, are established and they don't want to start fresh somewhere else. Plus, at the Salalah CAS at least, we had very low teaching hours for the last year or so. They say they are going to trot out some new initiatives to attract new students, but time will tell whether this will work out. However, at least when I was there, the amount of pay we were getting, for the amount of work we were doing, was actually very generous.
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danshengou



Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 434
Location: A bizarre overcrowded hole
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 9:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
What benefit is derived by having teachers twiddling their thumbs at their desks for weeks on end is beyond me, but, anyway....


Aye, but it's about the appearance of there being work to do. That said, your argument about just paying teachers to take another 4 weeks off would in fact do wonders for morale. But the higher-ups will have their own plans.
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1st Sgt Welsh



Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 946
Location: Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 10:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
danshengou wrote:
Quote:
What benefit is derived by having teachers twiddling their thumbs at their desks for weeks on end is beyond me, but, anyway....


Aye, but it's about the appearance of there being work to do. That said, your argument about just paying teachers to take another 4 weeks off would in fact do wonders for morale. But the higher-ups will have their own plans.


I couldn't agree more about about the importance attached to appearances. In regards to the leave, sure, and if they gave that additional time off, they could still attract people, with the desirable qualifications, whilst paying less. I would have been more than happy to make a few hundred bucks less a month if it meant that I was getting an extra month off. I'm sure a lot of other people would feel the same way. If they did that for every teacher, over every CAS, they would save themselves a fortune.

However, after living in the Gulf for two years, I honestly don't think that they think that way. Attitudes might be changing soon, but, I think the prevailing mindset has been that money just comes bubbling out of the ground, so what does it matter if a chunk of it gets wasted in obvious mismanagement? There's plenty more oil where that came from Rolling Eyes.
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danshengou



Joined: 17 Feb 2016
Posts: 434
Location: A bizarre overcrowded hole
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Do they allow unpaid leave during the non-teaching weeks? This would equate to the same thing more or less.
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1st Sgt Welsh



Joined: 13 Dec 2010
Posts: 946
Location: Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
PostPosted: Sun Jul 31, 2016 1:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
danshengou wrote:
Do they allow unpaid leave during the non-teaching weeks? This would equate to the same thing more or less.


I'm not sure about the new firm, but, Hawthorn was against granting any leave for any time other than July and August. However, that was a fairly recent policy introduced last year.
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Whatever will be



Joined: 05 Feb 2014
Posts: 303
PostPosted: Mon Aug 01, 2016 3:41 pm    Post subject: Salary sacrifice