Job Discussion Forums

[eik]

In an advertisement of EF English I read the following text :

We regret that due to strict immigration regulations we can only consider applicants who are nationals of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA.

Does this mean that people of other nationalities cannot work legally in Indonesia, or , or what ?

[Ozindo]

The term "foreign experts" is used to denote people from other countries who will be granted a permit to work in Indonesia. This is to protect jobs that can be done by Indonesians. For English teaching the Indonesian government decress that only native English speakers should be registered as "foreign experts", and that they should come from US, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia. In other professions, I believe, other nationalities are permitted to work, if they are in a specialised field and especially if they are training Indonesians in that field.
The job vacancy for English language teaching is, therefore, strictly adhering to this policy.
Because you are addressing your question to this forum, maybe you're concerned about your own position. If so, is there someone you can discuss this with? Or maybe you'd like to PM me.

[eik]

I am not a native English speaker, but thought it would be possible to teach in Indonesia.

If I understand you correctly, does this mean there are only English teachers in Indonesia from the countries which are mentioned above ? This really surprises me.
But if so, it's good to know, it would have been a wasted trip to go and have a look for a job...

[father Mackenzie]

Companies will employ you if you have more qualifications, practical teaching experience and can speak fluently without error. Visas are a little more hard to get but the non native English speaking western teachers I have worked with all had the correct paperwork and were teaching English very successfully here.
They do have an advantage over native western teachers and that is they have had to learn the language from scratch and so have learnt all the rules and structures and have had to study to get qualified where as most English speaking teachers may not have had that learning curve or level of qualification.

[eik]

[tanyakenapa]

I have a friend who is Dutch Indonesian and she is employed as a native speaker at a particular school.

When there was a vacancy at my workplace, I asked the DOS if she would be considered and he said no, because "its too difficult" if they aren't from the usual list of countries wanted.

[eik]

[father Mackenzie]

Ozindo is correct in his message, as that is what the Government states. However there are always exceptions and in Indonesia the exceptions are sometimes the rules.

[malu]

The UK/US/Can/Aus/NZ rule is correct for teachers of English. However... if you have qualified teacher status in your home country you might be employed as another type of teacher even if you don't have one of those 5 passports.

There are plenty of Filipino and Indian teachers of science and maths, for example. There is nothing stopping you employing a Dutch national as a native speaker teacher of Dutch. In all such cases, however, there is usually a lot of giving of gifts to be done over at the Manpower ministry.

[Vertumnus]

Reread this very important quote:

[cicak]

Hi

I am not native and have been working in indo for the past 5 yrs legally. When my school applies for my visa they apply for 'teacher' not 'english teacher'. Apprantly if your KITAS says 'teacher', you can teach any subject and that includes english. But for you to get 'english teacher' on your KITAS, you sould be from one of those listed countries, that's true. It's quite funny I know but this is indonesia

I've also met a girl from Spain and two Filipinos once and they were teaching english at a local language school, legally.

So the message is don't give up. You can find a job here.

Good luck.