Job Discussion Forums

[Epicticus]

VS, I think you have me confused with some one else. Old drivel, new drivel, what�s the diff. Sohar College, like many places, will NEVER change - it is the same over and over again. What �"clean sweep�" ? It is the same old story, year in year out.

[Geronimo]

Epicticus, I can understand why VS thinks that you might be someone else.

Only 5 months ago, ( on 8th March 2009), in your initial post , you wrote:

"Hi,
I'm new here in the Gulf and now teaching at the Oman Ministry College of Sohar."

How long did you stay at Sohar College? Was it 2,3 or 4 months? As you are now employed somewhere else in the Gulf, can we safely assume that you were there earlier this year? If so, how do you know so much about staff members who left years before your arrival?

I write as someone who was at Sohar College a few years ago.

Geronimo

[Epicticus]

Geronimo, I was at Sohar College for only a few months until I resigned in protest and took up a much better position elsewhere. I�ve heard the stories about what happened a year or so before my arrival and experienced the same type of nonsense that Sohar College is now justly famous for.

I think I know who you and VS are referring to - the infamous Steppy-boy. I�ve never met him but I�ve heard a lot about him and why he was driven to such despair with his colleagues and the College in general.

[Pikgitina]

jdl, thanks for that advice (even if it wasn't addressed to me). I'm sure many of us will benefit from it if taken to heart.

[veiledsentiments]

Bingo, Geronimo...

So... we have someone who claimed in March to be "new" to the Gulf... taught at one university for three months or less... and is now the authority on both the history and future.

If not a repeat performer, Epi certainly has the prose style (near verbatim) and the gossip down. But... he did join here one month after the demise of Steppy...

VS

[schaeen]

Who's this Steppy guy?

I knew a Canadian teacher in Korea who had taught in Oman. I wish I knew which school. After a month, he stopped sleeping and went completely nuts. He stopped shaving and probably stopped bathing. He wore T-shirts to class. In some classes he would just stare at his students without saying anything. When he started yelling in the hallway, beating the walls, he was asked to leave.

I'm wondering if this is the same guy!

[Geronimo]

No, can't have been the same guy, schaeen...

Steppy-boy is an Australian.

[Epicticus]

The plot thickens. Actually, I did meet up with Steppy-boy on a couple of occasions, and he related to me the whole sorry saga of Sohar College. He actually warned me about the place and I must say, his predictions came true.

As far as I know, he�s doing very well in Slovakia earning good money managing a school there.

This whole thread was started by Eric and his opinion about Sohar College, the admin, the HOD and his teaching colleagues. Three years down the track, teachers like Eric are still writing the same things about this horrible place as did Steppy-boy and probably even before the Steppyboy days.

There can be no doubt that this recurring theme about how awful this College is, constant complaints over and over again, should at least send warning signals to people contemplating working there.


As they say, no smoke without fire.

This College, was, has and is pronounced guilty as charged. The Verdict upon it is now crystal clear for the world to take note.

My prediction, sad to say, is that Sohar College will be a regular feature on Dave�s ESL for a long time to come.

[johnslat]

"As they say, no smoke without fire."

JFK had a slightly different version:

"Where there's smoke, you'll often find someone running a smoke-making machine."

[veiledsentiments]

The plot hasn't thickened... it is the same as it has been. Sohar is no better or worse than any place that Hawthorn/Majali is affiliated with... and that has been true for donkey's years. One can only wonder with whom in Oman he has acquired the wasta to continue to do this for all this time. He has continually hired people who were patently unable to handle any job beyond completing a CV - while engaging in business practices that would get him deported in other countries.

There are tons of threads all about this and if one takes a job with these recruiters in these colleges around Oman, one has been warned. The biggest problem is those with unrealistic expectations and little tolerance for ambiguity... both in management and faculties.

Hopefully the new employment rules in Oman requiring some vetting of education and experience will help weed out more of the terminally odd like schaeen has described and we have seen here on the board with rants that say as much about the poster as the employer.

For instance, the original poster here had another thread about what people should look for in a Middle East contract that was so unrealistic that you could only wonder if he had ever had a job or an overseas contract previously. The post was ripped to shreds by the experienced teachers. Thus, the inaccuracy of that thread makes this post suspect. And so it goes...

VS

[Pikgitina]

[littleoldlady]

also.