Job Discussion Forums

[Nabby Adams]

Hi all,
I am 40. Have ten years teaching experience. BA and TEFL cert. Am I being realistic in hoping to find this?

A job in a city or part of a city where the pollution/traffic isn't so bad that it affects my health. Basically a place where jogging in the streets isn't causing you more harm than good.

A 12 million Rp salary. But with housing paid 10 is ok.

Motivated students.

A happy workplace with a few other teachers to socialise with.

No more than 25 hours a week teaching.

Hopefully more than 2 weeks a year holiday to see the country.


If I have to, I would compromise on the salary to get the other requirements.

Terima kasih.

[philbags]

Hi Nabby ,
Naah, youre not being unrealistic at all. the hardest things would be the jogging and the friendly atmosphere. that's not to say that those things don't happen but they take a bit more luck/perseverence. The quieter towns around java are bandung(not really quiet),malang, solo... they descend in size in that order and so do the amount of schools and the salary. Surabaya has quiet side streets, and the salary range is in your ball park, tho they say the summertime heat is pretty intolerable.
As for opportunities off Java ..anyone?

[pauleslteacher1]

Hi Nabby... I can answer that with a resounding YES... Those are my current working conditions but with a bit higher salary and below 20 teaching hours per week...

As I've said before there are alot of good English teaching jobs out there if you take the time to look...

Cheers!

Paul

[laughing_magpie06]

should be ok but the jogging part is out of the question in jakarta. Jakarta rates about third in the world for air pollution and from what people tell me most other cities in Indonesia aren't much better. Overcrowding is pretty common everywhere and the smaller cities seem to be smaller in size but just as densely populated.
Also you may be hard pressed to find motivated students. At times Indonesians appear to be coasting through life and even adults seem to want to do things the easy way. I have always found Koreans and Japanese to be far more focused and switched on. Where I work now, we can make students repeat levels if they aren't up to scratch and it shocks a lot of them as most language mills have a no fail policy regardless of how slow they are.

[Llamalicious]

Yes, as the replies above show, it is possible, but I'm just chiming in to congratulate you on a great user name. Amazed no one else has grabbed it. I hang my head in shame.

[guruengerish]

You could have all that you're looking for, except possibly for the salary, in Malang.

It's coolish, pollution free just put of the main town, lots of rice fields and back roads for jogging. Nice pools and even cooler up the hill in Batu.

If you feel you must have a dose of the big city once in a while, Surabaya is just a couple of hours down the hill. Cheap hotel rooms, good shopping, and back home for lunch the next day.

[Nabby Adams]

Well the answers so far seem pretty positive.

I'm shying away from Jakarta simply because I am fearful that living in such a polluted city in the long term one could easily end up picking up god knows what. Breathing in Jakarta seems to be like sex without a condom. Nobody can say they didn't know the risks.

Another poster mentions their "eyes burning" in Medan. I wonder how far down Indonesia's list of cities one has to go before one can expect that most outrageous of demands; clean air?

But potential lung cancer wont be enough to keep me away. So just to check. Will a 12 million Rp salary be enough to live a good life? I've lived well on that amount in Chiangmai, Thailand, so that is what I am basing it on.

Oh and when salaries are talked about are people usuing refering to after tax? If not what is the tax take like?

And Llamalicious, yes I too am proud of my user name. Though far from a heavy drinker myself who can not find Nabby more than a little enduring and secretly wish that their own life was not as simple?

[guruengerish]

Well, Jakarta has made itself into a huge polluted mess, as priorities in the past did not include quality of life. One could write a thesis on how massive use of ground water has allowed salty water into the undeground system and cause the land in West Jakarta to be at or below sea level; garbage collection services and dumping into the Dutch-built flood canals; high sulphur levels of Diesel and the health problems that alone causes; plans to switch public transport including taxis to LPG and have 400 LPG stations around the city, plans to put in a monrail system.

It's all planning, but when huge percentages of funding are/were diverted, things don't seem to happen.

Does anyone know if the lead was eventually removed from petrol/gas/benzine? One of the EU countries was spending lots looking after kids with high lead levels in Jakarta city.

Certainly, any Westerner working in Jakarta must know the pollution level, and I would never return there.

Other cities are no-where near as bad, but do remember, that Java alone has 155 million people, so things do tend to get crowded. Why not try some of the Eastern provinces? Certainly 'developing' and not huge salaries, but the people and the country and the sea can be so interesting.

[malu]

[MrMrLuckyKhan]