Job Discussion Forums

[theredsnowsuit]

Hi everyone,

I'm considering teaching in Mongolia and looked through the boards for information related to Santis Educational Services, but most of what I came across had been written back in 2003, with the most recent being 2006. I've heard some rather nightmarish stories about Santis from former employees, and am wondering how accurate they are and if they are the rule or the exception. Any knowledge of Santis and the people behind it would be greatly helpful.

Thank you!

[nomad50]

I taught at Santis in 2003-2004. I had absolutely no problem and found the Mongolian teachers great to work with. Doloonjin Orgilmaa is the owner/director and is indeed a no-nonsense manager. However, I always got on well with her, and we had a very good rapport. All she expects is for teachers to do their job without complaining. When I was there, she was single. The posts I've since read all take place after she married. It seems her husband shares the role of director, and much of the vitriol is aimed his way. I can't comment because I don't know him. However, if you are one who is a loyal minion, does your work efficiently, and follows the rules, you will have no problem. Mongolia is a fantastic place, the cold winters adding to its magic, and you will love it.

[djidjah]

I taught at Santis up until very recently and I can assure you that all the nightmarish stories you've heard are true and then some. I've heard that once upon a time, it actually was a pretty good place to work, but not anymore. The working conditions, resources and pay are all substandard, the hours are excessive, and the treatment of teachers is disgusing. Moreover, it's nearly impossible to leave because if you do, Santis will withhold your salary, refuse to transfer your work permit and, if you need an exit visa to leave the country, refuse to issue the letter you need to get it. When the rage has had time to subside and I can write a little more coherently instead of just venting, I can go more into detail, but for now, please don't get involved with them.

That being said, Mongolia is a fantastic, magical place and it's absolutely worth coming here to teach. There are dozens of good schools all clamoring for native speaking Engish teachers. Here's a few:

The English for Specific Purposes Foundation (ESP)-I've seen at least one posting for work with them on Dave's. They're heavily involved with UB's surprisingly large EFL community.
The American School of Ulaanbaatar-pay really, really well and are located just on the edge of the city, at Zaisan. I think right now they're only looking for elementary school teachers, rather than ESL.
Ulaabaatar Elite Interational School-this school has an excellent reputation for good pay and good working conditions. They were advertising for teachers recently.
Success School, International Language Center, and the Hobby School are all places to look into if money is no object and you just want to come to Mongolia. You'll find some of the most fantastic people you could hope to work with at these schools and have light courseloads. However, the pay, while more than enough to live comfortable on in Mongolia, will be lower than at other schools and won't allow you to save much or pay down any outstanding debt. I should stress though, that pay is not low in relation to the workload at these schools.
The no. 3 Russian-Mongolian Joint school. This is a state run school and you'll teach kids. The pay is $800/month for about 15 hours a week and, while I don't work there myself, I know several people who do and they are all quite happy. People not only complete their contracts, but even sign on for a second year.
The Hartford Institute also has a really good reputation, but I'm pretty sure you need a masters to work there.

There are more, but these are a few that I know a little about, either personally or through friends and acquaintances who have worked there. I hope this information is useful to you.

[lmbeharry]

I, as a newcomer to Mongolia in December 2005, applied to Santis early in 2006. In March 2006, the Director there, Orgilmaa Doloonjin, promised to assist me in procuring a working visa. I relied on her assurance and discounted the prospect of leaving Mongolia to receive an extension on my tourist visa.

She had lied to me and reneged on her assurances. I was therefore forced to pay fines and penalties exceeding $300 USD to the Mongolia Ministry of Immigration.

I can assure you that Santis' current management is unreliable and unprofessional.

Lyndon

[lmbeharry]

I have read djidjah's comments and I concur with her assessment of Santis. I do not concur with her assessment of the ULAANBAATAR ELITE INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL (UEIS).

This is the short version:
The school is located on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.
The facility (which hosts over 100 students) is stationed on the top floor of a large four-story warehouse-shaped building. The environment is unhealthy, the playground is unhealthy.
Ten teachers are forced to share one room - about 4 meters X 2.5 meters.
All teachers (about 20) share one computer with internet access.

The teaching week: 26 hours

The school does not have textbooks for many (if not most) of the students

In 2006, I entered with a group of five foreign teachers, as all of the previous year's teachers had failed to renew their contract. That is 100% turnover in 2006. This summer, all teachers are leaving (except the two Americans who unfortunately started their contract in December). I expect that they will also leave in December. This, again, is 100% turnover.

The teaching week: 26 hours
In addition, the school expects teachers to forego evening personal time by attending study sessions with the students at the dormitory.
In addition, the teachers have to give up weekend time for:
Student outings
Teacher outings
Parents meetings and the like.

I taught the following:
World History (grades 4-11)
World Geography (grades 4-11)
Economics (grade 10)
International Business (grade 11)

The school had non-existent or insufficient books so I improvised and spent upwards of 60-70 hours each week preparing material.

You will have approximately 5 minutes to hustle between classes, change your game face from 4th to 10th or eleventh grade (very stressful).

The pay: $900 per month.

Don't get me wrong. I don't do this for the money, I do this for the children. But I advise you - stay away from this place. For a $3000 tuition, ALI YILMAZ DIRECTOR, should do some work.

He has proven himself to be a liar to me (I can show you his emails and my responses). And I believe he is a thief as well. Clearly he is not using tuition money to benefit his business by producing for the children.

Contact me by email if you need additional information.

[saint57]

[lmbeharry]

Thanks for your sympathy. I need all the moral support I can get.

I've got an interview with Hartford Institute tomorrow morning to teach Business. I hope it goes well. Thing is, I'm so drawn out right now, I'm not sure how I'll interview. I need a break of two or three weeks to clear my head...

Hopefully I can sign a contract tomorrow and get out to the Mongolia countryside by the end of this week.

Lyndon

[malinkyhoy]

I worked at Santis in 2006 and like many teachers suffered due to lack of information available about teaching in Mongolia. Santis is run by Orgilmaa Dolgoon and her English husband Andrew Orgil, neither of which have any experience of running a school of understand the meaning of the phrase "Teacher support". I will tell you what happened to me and alot of other good people and offer you some other good options for teaching in Mongolia.

First of all, I arrived at 3:45am direct from London via Seoul, at 11:00am I was taken from my hostel room to Santis, the first thing Orgilmaa says to me is "You have to remember I'm the boss here." And it got gradually worse there on in. During the four months I worked there 15 teachers left due to poor pay, poor conditions and over work. I'm still in Mongolia and in the past 14 months more than 30 teachers have been through their doors including backpackers, which is highly illegal in this country.

During the summer of 2006, we had only 4 teachers for 500 students, Andrew who claimed to be a Professor from an English Uni that I, as an English Graduate from England, have never heard of. This was confirmed when he made is 70 year old mother who was visiting the Mongolia teach to help us out!

Santis claim to be one of the highest paying schools in Mongolia this is far from true, they pay $600pm for 30 hrs pw. This is less than the state schools who have little money to play with but will pay you more and take better care of you.

If you are unhappy and want to leave they will cancel your work visa and try to get you deported, Orgilmaa's brother is leader of the Socialist party in the Mongolian Government and she has alot of friends on the English newspapers, and as corruption is endemic in this country it means she has alot of clout.

The head of the teachers faculty is an abusive alcoholic who's entire teaching experience is based on his two years at Santis, Andrew Orgil's nephew is runnning their second school on the other side of the city, with no experience with another teacher who has been known to active in some very nasty practices regarding his teenage students.

This happened to me and alot of very good people who deserved much better. Here are a few details of other schools around to help you:

Hartford (part of the Raffles group from Singapore) $2,000pm 30hrs pw.

International School of Ulaan Baatar $2,000pm 30hrs pw.

American School of UB $2,000pm 30hrs pw.

State school No3 Joint Russian Mongolian school $894pm 14.5hrs pw.

Success language institute, is a new school but the owner is a good person who cares about her students and teachers they pay 10,000ph for as many or as few hours as you want and still pay better than Santis.

You can arrive in Mongolia on a 30 day tourist visa and find a good job very easily, you're school can then tranfer this to a work visa for you without any trouble.

[lmbeharry]

Thanks loads for the information. I have been on vacation in the Mongolia countryside (no internet) so I have been out of the loop for the past month or so.

I accepted a position as an academic business lecturer with Hartford Institute and will start tomorrow.

Maybe we can meet sometime. Post me at my email address after July 28.

Regards.

[ontheroadagain]

In all fairness and in regards of what is being said about Santis, I am posting their answer.

ORIGINAL EMAIL copied/pasted

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:04:00 +0800


Mongolia

It�s true there are some ugly comments out there. They are spearheaded by a former employee that has made a mission of ruining the reputation of our school and several other schools for which he has worked in this city as well as certain individuals.

We are seeking legal action but in a developing country which is not sophisticated enough to have slander and libel laws, it is difficult. I�ll tell you that the one truth in that mess is that several years ago the number of hours per week for foreign teachers was much higher. They were teaching up to 40 hours per week and that�s too much and enough to make anyone angry.

We now have a maximum of 28 contact hours per week.
The rest of the comments are usually related to something about Santis trying to prevent someone from leaving the country.

What happens with this is that we have young, not fully mature people here that sign a one year contract and then decide halfway through that they want to move on to another place and, rather than talk to us about it, they just stop coming to work and try so skip out. Well, in order to leave, the school (or any company employing a foreigner) must release the worker�s work permit to the government.

So these people will go to the airport without telling us, then they have trouble because they don�t have the proper releases, then they blame the employer for trying to prevent them from leaving when actually the problem is that they didn�t take the necessary and respectful step of communicating with us.
We have had many teachers who have had to leave for a death in the family or some other emergency who have talked to us and we have released them without incident. Basically, as long as you communicate with us and tell us what you want to do, anything is possible.

You are right to be concerned about these things when making a huge decision like going to Mongolia. I�m happy to address any individual issues you may be concerned about and I�m happy to do so without obligation. I can assure you we are a reputable school and our teachers enjoy a very comfortable life. I�ve been here for one and a half years and I have found that to be true in that time. Please let me know if I can be of assistance. After my salutation, please find a general notice that may be of use.

Sincerely
Shawn Lafferty
Academic Director
Santis Educational Services
Mongolia

We have just opened our second branch location and are seeking ESL teachers to teach conversational English. We have several positions still available.
The monthly salary is $700 which, of course, doesn�t sound like much but in Mongolia that�s a lot of money. You will have a very comfortable life on that salary. The cost of goods and services are extremely cheap. We provide a fully furnished apartment and pay the rent.

Our apartments are nice and are within walking distance from the school. You�ll pay your own bills but the total of all your bills will be between $40 and $50 per month.

If you complete a one year contract we offer a $1000 bonus and, in addition, we pay for a single, economy class flight to your next destination. If you qualify, you could start as soon as you get here (or after you�ve rested a day or two from jetlag). You�ll need to get a new SIMM card ($15) if you have a cell phone or a whole new phone ($25) then the monthly bill will be about $12 if you send a lot of text messages or you can pay by �charging� it up with a credit.

So now you have it all and in due form. That said I will not go - I do not work in China or else for 5000CNY. It's about principal and self-esteem.

[ontheroadagain]

@ lmbeharry

It would be highly considerate of you if you could resize your picture/avatar to an appropriate size...

Kind regards.

[lmbeharry]

Man. I've been so busy. Regarding Hartford Institute's info above - that the pay is $2000 per month and 30 hours per week: the pay's about right, but the hours are more like 70. Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist - but if you hire me to teach business and finance, I'm going to do my damnest to instruct the students. Now - if you ask me teach four courses each twelve week session - that's 24 teaching hours a week of college level business studies - (basically four quarters a year) - and each session introduce a new course you figure an honest person would have to work approximately 3 hours outside for every one hour of teaching. So there: 24 X 4 = 96 hours a week of work. (I cheated, I only expended between 50 and 75 hours a week on average). Oh - and don't expect college level texts. The school pushes graduate level texts on their students. Believe me, I'm not out to ruin anyone's reputation - I just like TRUTH IN ADVERTISING! If you are a professional (that is a qualified instructor of any sort - that is, accustomed to working in a University or College atmosphere, STAY AWAY FROM HARTFORD!) If you are in UB wiling away some time and you want to generate some cash for reading powerpoint slides to a bunch of rich kids (counting their attendance and comings and goings - 5 absences is a failure; pretending to actually be teaching and testing them on relevant subject matter - using graduate level (MA and PhD) American and British texts for 18 and 19 year-olds where English is a 2d language - with little support (that's generous - NO SUPPORT!) from local or from home office administrative authorities), HARTFORD is for you! You see - I gave them my endorsement. They are a terrific babysitting establishment - not a place for any self-respecting instructor. Don't ask me to get into the details. I won't. I'm sorry if I offend anyone. Maybe I'm just too much of a perfectionist!!! I really don't mean to be hurtful!

By the way, I was terminated yesterday because I complained that the textbooks were innapropriate (I said that Hartford Singapore was stealing money from the parents of these students) and because I refused to endorse Hartford in television ads, and I refused to attend Saturday morning sit-in sessions to perhaps waste the morning away with other lecturers - I prefer to work alone where I can be more productive! And, BTW, I prefer to be terminated - that way I did not walk out on my contract; and I did not leave my students behind...

Good luck out there to all of you! I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy - as you may imagine.

lmb

[elisarw]

Hahaha! The posted letter from Santis that "ontheroadagain" put up here is such a hilarious lie. They mention a male x-teacher as spearheading this, which is hilarious as so many people have had such terrible experiences (including myself and my boyfriend). You can read my entire version (which is the same as everyone else's nightmare) by googling the words below...

elisa santis orgilmaa