Job Discussion Forums

[p1randal]

In terms of recruiting, it kind of (as most of us know) depending on your school's budget. If it were up to me, only candidates with English Teaching and or MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics would be taken.

This is an important point to mention, if schools just did that then they could probably justify paying higher wages as the candidates would be in theory a higher quality. Teaching isn't a job "any ole" person can do. People who are way under qualified have taken horrible wages and as a result schools have gotten used to that and pay accordingly.

In terms of cost of living, I have lived and worked in the USA, Spain and Korea and here is easily the cheapest. I made in the teens this year and my bills (housing, elec, tv) ran to about 1.5. I saved about 7-8 a month and I drink/club once in a while and I have gf. Korea you make about 2K where here you make 1500-2500 or more depending and can save as well. Is Korea easier to live (IMO yes!) but it is cold and the schools are a bit more hardcore.

Recruiting is hard because expats are wonky. The things I have seen and watched during my 8 years of teaching and recruiting is wild. This is in a way a good thing as if you are not insane you can command a higher salary as the school will know you will actually do your work and not be a crazy person.

I think we all hope this KITAS thing gets resolved soon so those of us who like it here can move on with their lives haha.

[Tazz]

Much as i love Indonesia/ Jakarta I wouldn't want to go there and take a job now. I left for the Middle East last year-and now make 3 times my last Jakarta salary. Somebody previously questioned the validity of us 'ex-residents' contributing to this forum. All I can say in response is that I still have family and friends there who work in the ESL business who keep me regularly updated on what is going on. The visa situation in Indonesia is complicated and problematic-and maybe it will become more so. Nobody knows what new regulations the incoming governmental agencies are going to enforce...nobody is 'scaremongering' here-it's the reality! In terms of what qualifications you NEED to obtain a kitas, and in terms of what documents you must PROVIDE AS EVIDENCE b4 the kitas will be granted.How long b4 the authorities here insist on seeing original transcripts in 'sealed' stamped envelopes-ala Korea. Or they ask that your degree certificate be verified and approved by a lawyer? Regarding salary and lifestyles-I would just point out that while the average language mill salary has been pretty static for some time the cost of goods/services/ petrol have risen considerably over last 2 -3 years...particularly price of alcohol, from either shop or bar.

[bradleycooper]

[jef dam]

[bradleycooper]

p1randal wrote:
In terms of recruiting, it kind of (as most of us know) depending on your school's budget. If it were up to me, only candidates with English Teaching and or MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics would be taken.

This is an important point to mention, if schools just did that then they could probably justify paying higher wages as the candidates would be in theory a higher quality. Teaching isn't a job "any ole" person can do. People who are way under qualified have taken horrible wages and as a result schools have gotten used to that and pay accordingly.

It is an important point. But most of the commentators in this forum don't think about economics. As p1randal says, "schools have gotten used to" paying low wages and they want it to stay that way. The main way that achieve it is by visa scams. They put people on the wrong visa to avoid having to pay higher wages to English graduates. That's the crux of the system at many schools.

In 2010-2011 started enforcing regulations that teachers needed to have degrees and TESOL certificates, and it caused a storm. The people Pirandal calls "the under qualified" were suddenly being shown the door at a lot of schools. This generated a lot of fear and uncertainty (go back to 2010 and 2011 and every second thread on here was about what the new regulations "meant" for teachers.) Weak enforcement of regulations is a massive problem in Indonesia and many people concluded that DIKNAS wasn't serious. It would just be a matter of placing yet another "present" in the right hands and the "problem" would disappear.

In retrospect, that view proved to be partly wrong. Yes, there is a lot of "funny business" going on (the shonky Rumah Bahasa is employing people on tourist visas) but the regulations have tightened for many schools. For example, original copies of degrees are now asked for. This would obviously have made life tougher for the many people who had "graduated" from The Photoshop University. It seems very likely that there are much fewer "teachers" without a degree around. But do they still exist? Absolutely. I know of several examples. Some people can get around the system.

Pirandal said, "People who are way under qualified have taken horrible wages and as a result schools have gotten used to that and pay accordingly." That's correct. A lot of the industry has been slow to accept that fact however. They have tried to cheat the new regulations by hiring "under-qualified" teachers on sosbud and business consultant visas. The reason I have recommended Wall Street is because they are the major school which increased wages the most and recruited teachers with "English" degrees most vigorously. They have accepted that if you raise the bar for qualifications, you also need to bump up wages quite a lot. That is an ethical stance I admire.

But what about the "funny business" schools? Well, they are hypersensitive to any mention of visa scams. Some of the representatives on here will even deny there is even any "funny business" going on. But it's legion, and the schools that have tried to get away with it are part of the problem. They can cry victim all the want, but they it takes two to tango when it comes to bribes and corruption, and boy have some of the schools tangoed. This is probably because Indonesian business owners are used to solving problems with bribes and used to getting labour for a song. They are also used to having maids, gardeners and cleaners who they can pay next to nothing. Their first thought is not 'how can we comply with these new laws', but 'how can we get around them'.

The industry has now had 4 years to clean up its act with these DIKNAS regulations. That's more than enough time. The simple fact is that many schools are stubbornly refusing to "play ball". Instead they rely on fake assurances to teachers about the legality of what they are doing. But this strategy relies on downplaying the risks involved. Serial dishonesty and misinformation has eroded the trust of many teachers in the indsutry. That's why you find users like Memae, Tazz, Princesss and myself saying some form of , "Indonesia is a risky proposition right now." I don't think that more blithe assurances that "all is well in Indonesia" are really going to solve the problem.

By and large, the industry (including its regulators) deserves its dysfunctional reputation. The risks of getting caught on the wrong visa may be small, but they are not non-existent. Teachers should be aware of the risks in signing up with schools with bad reputations.

[lrbrugby]

Jef Dam has a point. In a sense everybody has to start somewhere in the industry as it is at the moment. If we just state that everybody needs to have an English degree or an MA Tesol to teach anywhere then you are also going to have the need for higher wages.

The situation is that schools aren't willing to pay higher wages or that there simply aren't enough qualified applicants as per the rules as outlined by DIKNAS, or both. I'm not entirely aware of all the different ways that schools bend the rules but there is almost a definite need to.

It's great that the government wants more qualified teachers in schools but it's just not realistic at all levels of teaching in Indonesia. If you had an MA in Tesol would you really fancy working for EF wages if you could work in a host of other countries at a university?...

BradleyCooper has a point but I think the original point of the thread was that some posters on here are painting a very negative image of applying for jobs in Indonesia. The reality of the situation is that there is a very high demand for 'native' English teachers in Jakarta and a catch 22 of not nearly enough 'qualified' applicants. I have a degree in history and a CELTA plus five years experience. Is a new teacher with an English degree/no CELTA/little experience more qualified to teach than me? As per the rules, the answer is yes. These rules are silly but they are the rules in place. I do however think that rules can/have to be bent in order to saturate the market's demand for teachers.

[bradleycooper]

lrbrugby wrote:

Jef Dam has a point. In a sense everybody has to start somewhere in the industry as it is at the moment. If we just state that everybody needs to have an English degree or an MA Tesol to teach anywhere then you are also going to have the need for higher wages.

The situation is that schools aren't willing to pay higher wages or that there simply aren't enough qualified applicants as per the rules as outlined by DIKNAS, or both. I'm not entirely aware of all the different ways that schools bend the rules but there is almost a definite need to.

In terms of the DIKNAS regulations, I tend to agree with lrbrugby that the policy is wrong. It is very probable that with 5 years' experience in schools, he is a better teacher than a person with the right qualifications and little experience. But I do agree that some tightening up was required. I worked with some "teachers" in Jakarta who had no degrees at all and a mere "online" TEFL certificate. A popular misconception among these "very unqualified" teachers is that somehow 'personality' makes up for teaching knowledge. It is true that some of these teachers were "popular" with students but that's a very different thing from being an effective educator.

Maybe a 120-hour TESOL certificate with a degree in any subject would be probably a fair compromise. But DIKNAS will not be dictated to. The language schools made submissions years ago and they've fallen on deaf ears. Until DIKNAS signals otherwise, the "English" degree requirement is here to stay. For people who don't have this particular degree but do have a TEFL certificate there are many options in other Asian countries, so schools shouldn't be surprised that some people look elsewhere. (And I don't understand the whole angry tone of the original post unless someone is very frustrated with recruitment. If recruitment was a breeze, no one would be upset.)

A second issue is the integrity of law enforcement. Law enforcement is a perennial problem in Indonesia. The police are widely reviled and corruption cases are incredibly common. If DIKNAS and Immigration were serious about enforcing the letter of the law, they could make it happen. Instead they are enforced in a completely opaque and ad hoc fashion. Do some schools get away with more than others? Absolutely. Do DIKNAS and Immigration throw spanners in the works for schools they don't like? Many people say so.

It has widely stated in the press that JIS tried to "correct" the wrong job itle on the KITASes (work visas) and they were basically told it wasn't a problem. But then, once scandal struck, and the xenophobes in the local press were attacking JIS teachers, it was a BIG problem after all. In Indonesia the regulators are a big part of the problem. If they enforced laws equally rather than selectively, there would be more clarity. It is hard to escape the conclusion that money is behind the selective enforcement of the regulations.

A final issue is renumeration. Raising wages would make it easier for schools to recruit people. It would solve a lot of their problems. TEFL is an international market place and Indonesian recruiters are competing against schools in Seoul, Istanbul and Beijing. If they fail to grasp they live in a global marketplace, they shouldn't be surprised when recruitment gets tough. The well-established schools could certainly afford to pay higher wages as many Indonesian businesses pay very little tax due to various loopholes and dodges. The cheapness of franchise owners is another problem here.

Overall, there's a lot of blame to go around. The regulators have proven ineffective in ensuring a level playing ground. This has only encouraged schools to look for "alternative" approaches to work visas. If DIKNAS enforced the regulations strictly, schools would have no choice but to raise Native Speaker wages. This has helped keep wages down, which has meant more teachers have drifted off to other markets. What I don't see is schools or the regulator taking any responsibility for the problems in the industry. Instead it's always "disgruntled former teachers" etc. who are the scapegoat.

[p1randal]

"In a sense everybody has to start somewhere in the industry as it is at the moment. If we just state that everybody needs to have an English degree or an MA Tesol to teach anywhere then you are also going to have the need for higher wages."

-This is exactly the point, but I don't think it will be a popular one on the board. This isn't a job you can take a month long course and then be qualified to do properly. Teaching is a skill that needs to be learned over a period of time. Part of the problem is websites like this and others advertise ESL/EFL jobs as a way to "get away" which for me is maddening.

Experience in my mind is overrated. I interview countless people with 15-20 years experience who wouldn't know what UBD, Holistic Ed, 21st century Ed, etc if it bit them on the nose. One area experience does help (which is important) is being able to handle living abroad and not becoming a crazy person.

In the end this is capitalism. People can take or not take what they want. Patience should win out on both the person and the schools perspective. I interviewed a girl this morning and my principal said "Patience, better we wait and get someone good than take someone ok, this way both the students and our school doesn't suffer."

I guess a lot comes down to your school's philosophy and needs.

[memae]

i wasn't very happy when Wall Street told me that my degree in Linguistics wasn't good enough and that i needed a degree in English to work for them. They said my linguistics degree needed to be linguistics in/of English, but i've never heard of such a degree because linguistics is largely comparative. Sure, there's courses you can do on structures of particular languages, but an entire bachelor major dedicated to linguistics of English?

And then, seriously, an English degree to teach ESL? How many ESL students want a teacher who basically studied literature over a teacher who studied what language is, how it works, and how people learn it and use it?

i also would never want to do a MA in Linguistics, applied or otherwise, because i did my bachelor majoring in linguistics. i took courses with MA students, and they just had to do longer exams and write more papers. If you do well enough in your honours year you skip the MA and go straight to a PhD. MA Applied Linguistics/Linguistics is for people who didn't study undergraduate linguistics or who did undergrad linguistics and are having trouble getting into a PhD program or want to earn more money teaching English somewhere. i think about it sometimes, because it looks a lot easier to get a better job, but i'd rather just do a PhD. But i'm in my mid-twenties and i want to work first. PhD can wait until i'm boring and can handle living in one place long enough to finish it.

Not to rag on MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics/Linguistics, but it just seems kinda superfluous when a person has undergrad linguistics, teaching experience, and any reputable 120+ hr TEFL certification (especially when some MA TESOL providers will drop a unit or two if you've got a TEFL cert).

[memae]

[bradleycooper]

[jef dam]

[bradleycooper]

My experience in discussing Indonesian TEFL often goes like this. I say something like, "There is rampant visa fraud going on in Indonesia", on a public forum. I am at first met with implacable hostility and rage.

How dare I spread vicious rumours about the saintly Indonesian TEFL scene? Where is the proof for my allegations? Aren't I just a vicious swine who doesn't even live in Indonesia these days?

Then a few people come on and say, "Yeh actually, my last employer did have me on a sosbud, missionary visa or VKU visa too." This completely supports what I was saying, but there is no mention of the fact that at first it was hotly denied. The denial phase moves on and the new team line becomes, "Yeh, okay, the schools are breaking the law, but even DIKNAS is in on it, so what does it matter?"

And then there is the weird insistence that "it's only information from a blog, forum or website" etc. Well so what? If, as Jef Dam now hints, many schools are cutting deals with Indonesian officials which are- if push comes to shove- illegal, then that suggests the schools aren't entirely above board themselves. In the end, why are the assurances of a self-interested recruiter (who is possibly on commission) any more likely to be truthful than something on a blog or a forum?

Just like the attempts to "invalidate" the voices of people who left Indonesia after 9 years (as if that person isn't worth listening to!), certain sources of information are pushed as more worthy or credible than others. Just look at Jef Dam's link, for example. It starts by saying that in 2010 Indoensian TEFL was "in turmoil".

I'd ask people to think what it says about both the regulators and the TEFL school owners that the Indonesian TEFL industry seems to be perpetually in turmoil. Could it just possibly be that something is wrong with the management, owners and regulators, do you think?

http://jakartass.net/2010/11/gene-nettos-meeting-with-depnikas/

And then ask yourself who someone like Marksutm might want to promise and assure people that "all is well, nothing here is wrong". How can he pretend to know the intentions of DIKNAS? They have turned out to be unhelpful and capricious up until now. But we get the "horse-whispering" assurances such as follows. How much stake can be put in them, though?

Actually, this "crackdown" only will be temporary, until the Indonesian authorities check the validity of the visas of teachers currently working in Indonesia.

This is probably a nationwide check of visas and not a witch hunt, and once new visa regulations have been implemented teaching opportunities in Indonesia, will continue.

Try and put things in perspective. Yes, it is smart for teachers to check with their schools if their visa documents are in order, and I expect
the schools are already doing this.

Allegedly "former" industry types who promise you that "the crackdown will only be temporary" are making empty promises. As comments on this forum show, the "crackdown" has been going on in one form or another for 4 years!

I am baffled why the industry doesn't just make do with the few expat teachers who DIKNAS does approve, and stop trying cheat the new regulations. Deal with it; it isn't 2007- you can't hire former bus drivers as TEFL teachers anymore!

[princesss]

I just hope that Jef Dam doesn't try and post any comments on Dave's when he is back in the United Kingdom doing his Master's. Apparently the comments of ex-residents are worthless. It's a rule Markustm is trying to enforce!

In truth, considering Markustm's record of attacking language schools like Wall Street and EF himself, he seems to have hidden agendas. He usually aggressively defends TBI, a very old fashioned school which has lost most of it market share to Wall Street and EF. One suspects it is unflattering but truthful reports about TBI that are what really inspire his outbursts.

[lrbrugby]