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Blade
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 44
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 Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 2:44 pm Post subject: Cost of New Regulations Too Much $$$ |
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I have been to the American Consulate twice in HCMC, and both times, most people working there have been unhelpful and uninformed.
The costs of a criminal background check are going to cost me more than I thought.
In another act of brilliance, I am supposed to get a criminal background check for
EVERY place I have ever lived in the U.S.!!!!!!
The time to move on will be soon.
Have fun wasting hours of your time and money at the U.S. consulate and paying extortionate fees.
I am near the end of my rope when it comes to patience. It's not really worth it. |
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sigmoid
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 1276
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 3:31 am Post subject: |
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Blade, I feel your pain. Actually I don't because I left Viet Nam months ago. 
Anyway, if you can please give us some more info:
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| The costs of a criminal background check are going to cost me more than I thought. |
How much are we looking at here?
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In another act of brilliance, I am supposed to get a criminal background check for
EVERY place I have ever lived in the U.S.!!!!!!
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Not doubting you, but where'd you get that info?
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| The time to move on will be soon. |
In my opinion that's the idea. The authorities seem to be making it as difficult as possible to comply with getting a required work permit, not because they want people to have one, but because they want people to leave, to get rid of as many as possible.
Anybody else have any thoughts on that? |
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spycatcher reincarnated
Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 9:29 am Post subject: |
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IMHO you thoughts on this are uninformed at best.
Vietnam�s education policy is to have a massive push on, English, IT and vocational training. They are well aware that because of the lack of teachers with the required skills this will be an uphill struggle.
They positively want to encourage foreigners with the right skills to come to Vietnam!
I previously posted:
�This clampdown should be regarded as a part of an overall attempt by the government to get all foreigners properly/better registered and should not be viewed as the government picking on education. Because of the transient nature and the relative low pay of the industry, compliance will always be an issue and The Dolisa do seem to realize this. They also seem prepared to bend the rules when and where they deem beneficial, but always start off with a hard line approach.
As stated before, however, I do believe this crackdown will have some teeth.�
We will have to see how to see how many teeth this crackdown will have and just how sharp they will be. I remember reading a load of laws that I thought would force me to leave Vietnam which were never implemented and in fact I never heard of some of these laws ever again.
E.g. a law was recently published that said a foreigner can only rent a property if they have a resident�s permit. This law is obviously mad and they have already said that they won�t be enforcing this.
Another:
All foreigners will have to have an aids test before entering Vietnam. This one lasted less than 24 hours.
One has to remember that Vietnamese laws are in their infancy so they are still a mess and poorly thought out. Vietnam makes laws that apply to all then issues circulars and decrees to clarify the actual implementation so looking at a law may not give you a real overview of what the true situation is.
Vietnam is rushing through loads of new laws this year in an attempt to get them out before the end of the year so they can join the WTO by year end. This is where all their efforts are going at present and they aren�t spending much time concentrating on the present laws no matter how arcane and impractical they may seem.
The work permit issue is really not that much of an issue except for Americans as their consulate and Embassy make it one by being difficult.
We won�t know how many teeth this crackdown will have until much later in the year and if I were a qualified teacher considering coming to Vietnam I wouldn�t let this crackdown put me off unless I were a mass murderer and this showed up on my police certificate. |
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sigmoid
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 1276
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| Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2005 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| They are well aware that because of the lack of teachers with the required skills this will be an uphill struggle. |
It's only an uphill stuggle because they're making it one. It would still be a struggle without the work permit mess, but a less steep incline.
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| One has to remember that Vietnamese laws are in their infancy so they are still a mess and poorly thought out. |
So it's just rampant ineptness and not a deliberate campaign of obfuscation and disinformation?
They've never had laws before?
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| They positively want to encourage foreigners with the right skills to come to Vietnam! |
How so? What are they doing to encourage them? There aren't a lot of folks interested in teaching in Viet Nam as it is. Now there are less.  |
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Snaff
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 142
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| Posted: Thu Jun 09, 2005 4:24 am Post subject: |
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Last edited by Snaff on Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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spycatcher reincarnated
Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:32 am Post subject: |
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Sigmoid wrote:
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| It's only an uphill stuggle because they're making it one. It would still be a struggle without the work permit mess, but a less steep incline. |
The policy is for the whole of Vietnam. Obviously clamping down on a few foreigners makes negligible difference to the overall number of English teachers in Vietnam.
One has to remember I was referring to this:
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| "............ not because they want people to have one, but because they want people to leave, to get rid of as many as possible." |
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| They've never had laws before? |
Laws on foreign investment, bankruptcy, labor, tax, are all relatively new or have been totally revamped in recent years. One has to remember that everything was communist not so long ago so in theory everything was owned by the government. Nothing could go bankrupt, everybody was employed by the government, as the government owned everything there was no need to collect taxes as they were only taking it away from themselves and giving it back to themselves.
State companies were in effect �gifts� to high ranking cadres and until recently none of these were ever audited. Not even sure if they had to bother keeping accounts.
The short answer to your question is �Yes, there were no laws�.
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| How so? What are they doing to encourage them? |
The Vietnamese government can�t be expected to advertise for English teachers!
The Vietnamese government realizes that the way to attract foreign teachers to Vietnam is by attracting overseas education establishments to set up here. Then in turn they will attract the foreigners to come and teach here. The government attracts them in a number of ways. One of which is giving them very large tax breaks and in some ways it makes it difficult for the local schools to compete with them.
The schools are way behind the time with legal compliance and one could definitely argue that this crackdown was well well overdue. Letting this go on for so long could be considered as encouraging the industry, but they have to draw the line somewhere.
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| There aren't a lot of folks interested in teaching in Viet Nam as it is. |
I disagree. Vietnam is becoming a very desirable location.
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| Now there are less. |
[/quote]
With postings like yours there will be less. Maybe this is your idea? |
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spycatcher reincarnated
Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:48 am Post subject: |
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Snaff wrote:
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| For what....12-18 USD per hour? |
Everyone knows that the EFL industry on the whole is not a good payer. If one's primary goals are pecuniary then they shouldn't be in the industry.
It is not the Vietnamese government that sets salaries for English teachers.
Salaries are negotiated between the employer and the employee. If you are unhappy with what you are earning then this must be partly your fault because, to me, this means that you in at least one way didn't possess the competencies to get more.
These competencies could include:
Not being able to find the right employer
Not being able to persuade the employer of your true value
Not having the required competencies to be worth more to the employer
As I have previously posted some people are doing some work at 50 usd per hour, probably because they have the right competencies. |
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sigmoid
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 1276
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks for your informative reply. I feel I understand the situation a bit better now.
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| With postings like yours there will be less. Maybe this is your idea? |
I have no interest in discouraging teachers from going to Viet Nam. I spent some time teaching in HCMC last year and found it a bit too depressing. There were a few positive aspects to it, but the overall balance definitely fell on the negative side. If anybody wants to try it, they can knock themselves out as far as I'm concerned.
I posted on this topic simply because it bafffles me and I feel a bit outraged at anything so completely absurd.
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| I disagree. Vietnam is becoming a very desirable location. |
Well, we agree to disagree, but please give some reasons why you feel this way and if you are speaking about the whole country or simply HCMC.
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| As I have previously posted some people are doing some work at 50 usd per hour, probably because they have the right competencies. |
How many is 'some'? Obviously this is far from average although within the realm of possibilities.
Anyway, thanks again for your useful contributions to this discussion on what is undoubtedly of great importance to anyone considering teaching in Viet Nam.  |
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Snaff
Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 142
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 2:51 pm Post subject: |
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....
Last edited by Snaff on Sat Oct 29, 2005 9:15 am; edited 1 time in total |
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laconic
Joined: 23 May 2005
Posts: 198
Location: "When the Lord made me he made a ramblin man."
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| Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 11:12 pm Post subject: Please |
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"As I have previously posted some people are doing some work at 50 usd per hour, probably because they have the right competencies."
Spycatcher reincarnated wrote what is written above.
In Vietnam? Teaching English? How about one concrete example that can be verified?
Frankly, I don't believe it. And even if such positions do exist, they comprise at the most .000000000000000000001% of the english teaching going on in Vientam.
Prove me wrong. Please. |
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spycatcher reincarnated
Joined: 19 May 2005
Posts: 236
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2005 12:58 am Post subject: |
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Laconic
I have previously made the following two postings and no one queried them.
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| Most Vietnamese teachers work short hours at their schools and do lots of relatively highly paid private work. I know Vietnamese teachers that charge students about one usd per hour and get up to 50 students in a class at a time. |
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| NB: in Management Training many Vietnamese trainers are earning higher salaries than native English speakers. 50 usd per hour is not uncommon. |
My last posting, however, was referring to foreigners teaching English. I can not, at present and without some effort, "give one concrete example that can be verified" for foreigners, and I wouldn't if I could.
For foreigners to earn this sort of money per hour they need to be looking for corporate work organized by themselves and not through a school. Japanese companies would be one's main target.
I know of one person who taught a group of Japanese housewives. Each housewife paid 10 usd a time. Sometimes up to 15 in a class. Admittedly this class was some time ago.
I personally have taught corporates at 35 and 40 usd per hour. If one doesn't ask one doesn't get.
I could have kicked myself, as he said "Name your price?" I stupidly said 35 usd per hour and he commented how cheap it was and immediately agreed. Korean company.
The 40 usd an hour one was actually 500 usd for 12 hours a month and I still got paid if they cancelled classes. Vietnamese company.
I would have to get my calculator out to dispute your percentage. The sentence I wrote was suitably vague and included two "somes". If I had meant to include Vietnamese in this sentence, however, I probably would have written this:
.....a small number of teacher are doing a not insignificant amount of their work at 50 usd per hour....... |
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Blade
Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Posts: 44
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| Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2005 10:47 am Post subject: |
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| spycatcher reincarnated wrote: |
Salaries are negotiated between the employer and the employee. If you are unhappy with what you are earning then this must be partly your fault because, to me, this means that you in at least one way didn't possess the competencies to get more.
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I agree Spycatcher.
All teachers should ONLY ACCEPT A MINIMUM OF 13.50 PER HOUR USD.
NOT LESS.
IT IS A MARKET.
Accept no less than $13.50 USD from any school, be it, ILA, VUS, or VATC, or any other school.
Higher visa and work permit fees, rising rents, and inflation.
No less than $13.50 USD per hour. |
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