Job Discussion Forums

[elizabeth]

I wondered if you can shed some light?

I was recruited by an Japanese private institute and told later that the reason I had to fly to Japan (which I'd agreed to on telephone interview) was to attend a face to face interview (with Japanese goverment officaials), inorder to become an assistant language teacher for the JET scheme.

Lately, I've been doing a little research and discovered (unknown to me) that there are several ways to become a teacher of the JET scheme. I always read that JET's make 300,000 per month (my salary is 250,000 paid by the institute). Also in most cases a flight is provided.

My questions are:
1. Is your salary 250 or 300,000?
2. Is your flight provided?

P.s. I am British and currently teaching/living in another Asian country.

[Celeste]

As far as I know, private institutes do not recruit for the JET scheme. JET recruits through its embassies and consulates in various countries and conducts all of the interviews at hotels near those embassies and consulates. Does anyone know if this has changed? Are they contracting this out to recruiting companies now?

Now I can tell you about my air ticket from August 2002 and my salary for the last 8 months.

First the air ticket:

After I was notified that I had gotten the job, I was required to submit my passport and Visa application form and some passport sized photos at the Japanese consulate in Vancouver. A couple of weeks later, all of the new JETs from our area attended a meeting in which we were given our passports with visas stuck in and our air tickets. We did not lay out any cash for the tickets. After I arrived in my city, my board of education(BOE in JETspeak) gave me the balance of the money that they had over budgeted for my air ticket. They called this relocating money. Not all BOEs give this.

Now, my salary:

I get paid on the 20th of every month. I receive 249 000yen in my bank account on the morning of the 20th day of each month. My paystub lists my pay as 311 000yen (the 11 000 is added to compensate for income tax). Then there are several deductions which include health insurance, pension, employment insurance, rent, and office social fund. I don't have a paystub to look at right now, so I can't give you exact figures for each deduction. My rent is 11 000yen a month though(good deal, eh?) and I think my health insurance is around 2500yen a month.

Are you really sure you are being offered the JET scheme, and not just another assistant language teacher (ALT) position? Who is the recruiting company? Please give us the details of your research. I know that there is an April intake for JET, but I was under the impression that that intake was specifically for Chinese and Korean ALTs.

[Glenski]

Number one, JET is not a "scheme"; it is a government sponsored program. A scheme is something that 007's enemies concoct.

Two, this is snipped from the JET (program) home page regarding recruitment:

[G Cthulhu]