Job Discussion Forums

[Tres Belle]

Hi, there
I read a lot of information from NET official website(EBD). But didn't get any information regards to the length of paid holiday (not paid sick leave, special leave etc.) Could anyone give that information? Is the length of paid holiday specified in your contract?

many thanks
Ann

[anninhk]

Not sure what you mean by 'paid holiday'. If you are employed as a NET teacher you are a full-time employee and that means you receive a salary every month. In theory NETs are supposed to get 90 days holiday a year and this includes a minimum of 4 weeks at summer. What you actually get depends very much on your school - some get the full amount and some don't. My school is very good, and as well as all the public holidays I get approx 2 weeks at Christmas and 2 at Chinese New Year. I usually only get just over a week at Easter and 5 to 6 weeks in the summer. NETs are generally luckier than local teachers who only get a fraction of the holidays the NET gets

[11:59]

Ann is almost correct in all she says, albeit it with one small correction. The local teachers get exactly the same holidays as NETs, at least on paper; it is just that they are too scared to take all the holiday they are entitled to for fear of appearing 'lazy' and/or actually losing their job. Many principals say that holidays are for the students, not for the teachers, and some principals go one step further and state that there are no such things as holidays, only lesson-free periods, which are holiday enough. Also, many principals who do allow their local staff to have holidays call meetings slap bang in the middle of the said holidays to ensure that teachers cannot leave HK, or at least to minimise the time they can leave the territory for.

[foster]

Yes, we get decent holidays and we are not afraid to take them. Most of my local staff are slightly jealous of my holidays which I take and when asked why they won't take theirs, as 11:59 said, they state that they are afraid of losing their jobs.

In my last school, the teachers had about 3 weeks in the summer of free time but the principal there was a moron and loved Monday/Friday meetings, so lots of people (including the NETs) got shorter holidays.

My school this year seems a bit stingier around Easter with only one week and I have never had less than 10 days, but I assume that they make up the days off elsewhere.

[11:59]

Also, isn't the phrase 'paid holiday' slightly tautologous? If the period of time is not paid then how could it ever be classed as a 'holiday'? Surely if it was unpaid then it would be more accurately described as a suspension of duties? An 'unpaid' holiday is an oxymoron. Teachers in Hong Kong are paid twelve times a year (and some, thirteen times), though, as one soon discovers, twelve months of work are typically compressed into eight or, at most, nine months.