Job Discussion Forums

[jef dam]

There seems to be the belief that this company has sorted out its back yard and changed its ways to the extent that it�s now an upstanding organisation that you would be privileged to work for. Before I go into the list of problems with this company I will concede the following:

1) It is a place to get an invaluable first year of teaching experience under your belt.
2) I went through my contract fully and completely before signing it and was fully aware of the conditions of my employment; I just didn�t realise how these words translated into a real life situation and how inflexible said contract was.
3) A small number of people do choose to stay for a second year and that is commendable.
4) I was always paid on time.
5) My first DoS was fantastic, my second DoS was a good guy who I think genuinely had the teachers interests at heart and did his best, but it was his first management position and through no real fault of his own he struggled with a lot of aspects of the job. I wish him all the best.
6) I was offered a ST position [despite being a first year teacher] which after initially accepting I declined.
7) Some people enjoy working for EF SWARA.
EF SWARA does offer people an opportunity to live and work in Indonesia.

Without going off on a slanderous rant, I�ll just give you a few highlights from my own personal experience.

I spent my first two months in an 8x8 kost room with no air conditioning and no windows where I was the only western resident. Seeing as how I was then unable to speak Bahasa Indonesia my human contact was limited to down time between classes and evenings when I made the two mile walk to the nearest teachers house. When a room became available I was overlooked and the room was given to a newly arrived teacher [who left a week after arriving].

When I finally did get a house it was in a dire state of disrepair. The roof was leaking, the floor tiles were smashed, the water pump stopped working regularly [this left us with no running water on numerous occasions leaving us to wash and flush our toilets with our drinking water, in one instance the school refused to replace our drinking water which had been used for the above purposes because we were late paying our house bills which we were in the process of disputing], most of the power-outlets were hanging off of the walls and intermittently functional, there were loose electrical wires everywhere, the front door was broken and rotting, the furniture was dilapidated and the place hadn�t seen a lick of paint in the best part of a decade. Despite submitting a list of faults, photos of our squalor and being told these issues would be dealt with all that was ever repaired was the leaking roof��..we were also given a new sofa which was taken from the schools shop front. Including bills [which gradually increased for no obvious reason, when we asked why this was happening we were given 2 utility bills and a hand written breakdown of the rest of the charges] this house cost us in excess of 1 million per month each.

I witnessed one of the schools office boys get electrocuted while attempting to repair my houses water pump which he was not qualified to fix. Neither an ambulance nor medical assistance was sent by the school, despite numerous phone calls. The centre managers� assistant and the school driver were sent. I understandably had some choice words for the CM. I also requested a meeting with the owner of the group to discuss what had happened which was denied. When I told my DoS that I wanted to break my contract as a result of the schools [lack of] actions I was reminded of the financial penalties that I would have to pay, regardless of the circumstances. As a result neither the DoS nor the CM spoke to me for the best part of a month. I had to request my ten month observation and appraisal in my eleventh month as it was plain as day that my professional needs had become bottom priority.

Elsewhere:

Wages: YOU ONLY GET PAID FOR ACTUAL TEACHING HOURS AND YOU DO NOT GET A PAY SLIP OR A TAX NUMBER. Depending on the classes you�re teaching and how much effort you are willing to put into these classes you can end up working up to sixty hours a week and only be paid for your twenty three teaching hours. You do get over time after twenty three hours, but if there is a public holiday you will get additional classes added to your schedule which will not be paid at over time rate because you had a day off. This results in working the same amount of hours over a shorter period of time. As was mentioned in another thread all classes are paid at the same rate so if you are teaching CLT, TOEFL or IELTS which include dramatically more research and work than other classes you are not being compensated for your time. You may also be asked to undertake a second role within the school; you will not get any extra money for this. You are contractually obliged to conduct placement interviews and part-take in marketing events; you will not be paid for these.

Training and Development: This is a bear minimum. You will get one weeks [unpaid] induction and you will be given a teaching mentor for your first three months, who if you are very lucky will be more than a first year teacher. You will receive a monthly workshop from your DoS, some of which will be useful, some of which will be utterly pointless. Most of these workshops involve little more than a brainstorm and a game. You will be periodically observed and appraised. You will not be trained in exam preparation teaching [which EF provides], you will not be trained in dealing with special needs children [which EF accept], you will receive no training in teaching in Elementary / High-Schools [which EF will send you to do and which IMO is decidedly different to standard ESL teaching]. EF does not offer you a chance to gain better qualifications. Your professional development will depend on how willing you are to do research and how willing your co-workers are to help you.

Classes: Student in-take is dealt with by the front desk staff. They have student quotas to fill so regardless of the level the student tested and interviewed at they will be placed where there is room for them. The front desk staff administer and correct the placement tests and teachers are only supplied with the students multiple choice answers [a,b,c,d marked on a grid] and the score that they were given, not the actual test. Students are also passed from level to level regardless of their ability or performance and will receive a completion certificate. Class sizes can range from four to sixteen. You cannot exclude, admonish or otherwise discipline disruptive students [I understand that as a language centre and not a state school EF has no right to �put manners on� its students, and rightly so, but you will be admonished by your superiors as soon as a parent complains that you told their child to sit down and be quiet.].

Scheduling: The centre manager draws up the teachers� roster as he or she sees fit. You can expect to have early starts and late finishes. You will also work two out of three Saturdays without this being taken into account during the week. You will work split shifts and be told that your two or three hours off are yours to do with as you please, in reality this [unpaid] time will be spent correcting, planning and performing administrative duties. There will little or no consideration given to your strengths or weaknesses. There will be little consistency in your schedule [at one stage my schedule consisted of five young learner classes and two TOEFL classes, classes which lend nothing to one and other]. You will be given cover classes at short notice, these are not optional.

Arriving & Working: You will be asked to lie to enter the country. You will spend your first month, maybe more, working illegally on a tourist visa. You will be hidden from immigration officials when they arrive. You will not receive a proper KITAS, a tax number, a tax card or a government issued I.D. The school may try to hold your passport. You will be required to leave a deposit relative to the time remaining on your visa if you wish to leave the country during your contract, thus your movements are restricted. You will have to pay a proportional penalty [this starts at 15 million] if you break your contract, this will not be waived under any circumstances, regardless of how bad the situation may be [a teacher in my school needed to return home urgently as his father had gotten into a fairly serious accident, once he submitted his passport to get his EPO it was withheld by the company until he paid his severance penalty]. If you break your contract you will not be paid any of your flight reimbursement. Once you sign you are there for a year.

Teachers: This is not a slur on my former co-workers as they were easily the highlight of my time with this company. When I arrived there were two second year teachers, a third year teacher and a senior teacher. Within two months the two second year teachers had left, one of whom broke her contract. After another three months the senior teacher was made DoS. Of the thirteen first year teachers that I have worked with in the past twelve months only one has signed a second contract. He only signed this contract on the promise of a raise and a promotion, neither of which has materialised and he has been informed that neither of which will materialise due to two errors in his class paper work. The school spent five months fobbing him off before informing him that he will not get what has been promised to him. Two teachers left after their first week. Another teacher broke his contract. One teacher was not offered a second contract. Not one of the other eight teachers signed, or is willing to sign a second year contract. The third year teacher is now a fourth year teacher and is still making the same amount of money as the first year teachers. He has not been rewarded in any way, shape or form for his loyalty. These numbers speak for themselves.

Miscellaneous:
Resources are thread bare; insufficient quantities of teachers editions, photocopied books which are battered to the point of being barely usable, in my particular school there was one black and white computer printer located in the centre managers office, not the computer room, which you had to manually feed paper into one sheet at a time, the photocopier did not work on a day to day basis and at various points over the year the school ran out of both A4 paper and whiteboard markers. Audio resources, if you could find a working c.d., were rendered redundant due to a lack of working stereos. The school has recently upgraded to a version 2 multi media centre, at the time of writing the database had not been updated with all the necessary programs, materials or class lists to make this system fully operational. It took the best part of nine months to put this still incomplete system in place.

Communication within the company, at virtually all levels, is dire. The front desk do not communicate with the teachers, the management do not communicate with the teachers, messages do not get passed on, problems do not get with dealt with, grievances go as far as the centre manager, if they even get that far, and are swept under the rug, classes are cancelled and teachers are not informed, there have been instances where students have not been informed that their course is starting, even the driver and office boys are unsure about where they are supposed to be and when they are supposed to be there. If there is something that you need to be informed about [see my experience with being passed over for housing] you will hear it on the grapevine.

The school itself was in poor condition. I can only speak for the school that I worked in so this may not be the case across the board. The class rooms were, for the most part, too small and only some had functioning air conditioning units. The school had been renovated and new class rooms were added but these new rooms fell into a poor state within a matter of months. The only room in the school that was presentable was the all glass room in the lobby. The teachers room was cramped with insufficient air conditioning, two small waste paper baskets which were only emptied at the end of the day [not when they were full, which was usually at about midday]. It also flooded when the rain was heavy. Despite the state of the class rooms and facilities the lobby was always immaculate and the marketing graphics were always well kept. There were no fire alarms, fire extinguishers or emergency exits in the building. There was also no bathroom.

You do not have health insurance. If you are to fall sick and require a stay in hospital you must cover the costs of in-patient treatment and you will then be reimbursed some of the costs by the company. This process can take up to three months. Your GP / Outpatients cover for the year comes to just over one million which will be completely used up after a handful of doctors visits.

There are countless other things ranging from general disorganisation to the companies willingness to short change you to the local staff being treated like dirt and discouraged from socialising with the western staff, that could, and probably should be mentioned but I think what I�ve written is sufficient. Despite all of the above I did gain experience from this company and I have found a new, better job as a result of this. I also met some fantastic people and had some very good times. You will learn the ropes of the industry but it will be a very trying twelve months and there will be numerous occasions where you will need to bite your lip. If you are considering a position with EF SWARA please take this post into account so if you do join this company you will know what to expect.

[travelNteach]

JD, thanks for taking the time to write such a detailed account of your working experience. i think u did a good job of presenting facts without ranting like a disgruntled ex-teacher. i found the post to be very informative and i am sure it will be of help to those reading it.

[extradross]

MOD EDIT The NPWP is significant now cos of the fiscal situation, if you want to leave the country for vacation you have to produce the NPWP at the airport or immigration are going to enforce the 2.5 million fee. Any current/ex EF swara employees have this provided by the school?

[jef dam]

In relation to the above; you are not provided with the NPWP by the school. If you are going abroad the school will pay the 2.5 million fiscal but you need to leave 2.5 million with the school as a deposit. You do get this deposit back on your return, but on top of the [up to] 15 million that you must also leave to cover your visa and due to the salary you earn it is very, very difficult to raise the amount required to leave Indo for a vacation.

[malu]

Jef. Your experiences with the housing, taxation status (or lack of it) and having to pay huge deposits to travel overseas are the kind of things EF Swara were infamous for in the past but I had imagined the group had made progress in recent times.

Can you confirm that your experiences are drawn from within the last year or so?

Thx

[aku_tonpa]

If Jef's experience is recent, then it sounds worse than when I was there in 2003 e.g. deposits to go on holiday. If EF swara have turned a corner, why would they impose this? Would any swara DOS care to comment?

[malu]

EF DoSs - you are usually quick to appear on this forum. Could you please answer the following.

1. Do all FTs at EF Swara get registered for tax (and therefore are issued an NPWP)? Please do not give an evasive answer like 'I work for Swara and I've got one'. Actually, I'm tempted to tip off the Kantor Pajak if it appears there is any foul play. They have a 'whistleblower' phone number.

2. Why must FTs pay such huge deposits to leave the country on holiday? By law so long as the teacher pays for the ERP or MERP that should be enough. I have been here since 2004 and have NEVER had to pay for more than the re-entyry permit itself.

[extradross]

EF should make that part of their advertising blurb-come to exotic sunny Java-and enjoy ya holidays there, cos you sure as hell won't be able to go anywhere else!

[jef dam]

Yes, my contract expired recently so this all occurred in the last 12 months or so.

[Oreally]

O Father(Mackenzie), Where Art Thou?

[travelNteach]

having a chat with mas gusti and chris trying to figure out how to put a spin on this one. MOD EDIT but didnt want to mention it because my info was a little dated (6 months). good to know it is business as usual.

[malu]

The silence is both uncharacteristic and deafening.

[eclectic]

[extradross]

I remember when I worked there one of the drivers being involved in an accident that had him hospitalized-management sent [via the dos] an envelope to the teachers so they could have a 'whip round' to contribute to the cost of the treatment, how low can y go.....?

[aeh]

As a former Swara employee, I am not unfamiliar with things that are mentioned on this forum however I do think that Jef Dam's own personal bad experience means that others' are overlooked. I know many people who spent a very happy year at EF and it has been a good stepping stone for them to continue with their careers. It would be naive of me to say that once people have worked for EF, they would want to stay forever; many of them use that experience to move on to other schools but they certainly don't regret their time with EF Swara. After all, everyone has to start somewhere. I'm sure there are plenty of people employed by other companies who started their careers stacking shelves or waiting tables and it probably wasn't the most glamorous of jobs but it gave them certain skills that were needed to progress with their careers. I'm not comparing EF to a supermarket by the way, just trying to give an idea!

It's great that Jef Dam is sharing his experiences on here, people definitely should know all the facts and opinions (forewarned is forearmed etc) but perhaps the reason that we don't see too many people on here speaking about their positive experiences is that when they do, they often get accused of being an EF Swara DOS/CM/HR person in disguise. When people have a happy experience, they don't always feel the same need to express themselves as people who are unhappy, right?

I'm not saying here whether my experiences are positive or negative, really, I'd like to remain impartial. I'm no fool. I spent long enough at EF and in Indonesia to know what happens and how. I just think it might be good if people could think about things a little more objectively.

I know some people leave because they aren't happy which is fair enough and in some circumstances, I can see why but other people are asked (told) to leave due to poor performance or bad attitude or whatever. Those people probably don't have too kind a word to say about the company so it's important to distinguish between people who are generally sharing a bad experience and want others to be warned and those who are just looking for revenge.