Job Discussion Forums

[Gregor]

I worked at EF KBJ a few years ago, as a teacher.
At EF Shenyang, I was there for two years, on a two-year contract. One year for Dalian. Shenyang and Dalian as DoS, by the way.

[laughing_magpie06]

I have been watching with great interest lately how this school seems to endlessly be advertising for new staff. Now posters can keep saying that the staff are not performing adequately etc but it does make you wonder about staff management issues when there are job placements almost every month. It is a two horse race between this school and the swara group as to who places the most ads, maybe the swara group by a whisker.

[guruengerish]

I think to be fair, one needs to know how many teachers a school employs. If there are eight or ten on a 12 month contract, then obviously a vacancy is going to occur about monthly if the teachers move on. This is not hard to do if you're working in Jakarta.

EF at KBJ needed to lift their act as far as housing went, and my first house was very basic. For my second year there, the house offered was much better as far as furnishings and kitchen facilities went, but it leaked like a sieve and the mosquitoes swarmed in.

But all-in-all, I experienced far worse in other cities, and the owner of the school and his wife were very fair in dealing with staff who pulled their weight.

The biggest problem with the whole EF system is that if a teacher expects his students to work hard and get good results, they bitch like crazy in their 'teacher assessment' report, and that can spell the end for a teacher. You're expected to to do the singing and dancing monkey routine and fudge the results a little so even the laziest sneak through.

[laughing_magpie06]

I can see the point you are trying to make guru but all EF schools have roughly the same amount of staff so of course the same turnover would be expected. But out of the 20 or so schools I just made the observation that only 2 groups- Swara and West Jakarta seem to constantly be searching for new staff. And there were half a dozen teachers fired in the time I was there. Now compare that to another EF I worked in and only 2 were fired in 12 months and they were the DOS and Center Manager. Now I wonder why these positions never seem to be accountable in West Jakarta?

[guruengerish]

Wow, half a dozen fired! In my two years with them, the school fired just two staff and the DOS left due to differences with management, before they took on a few more DoS types.

But one must also remember that EF West Jakarta now have at least three schools.

Another factor which I mentioned earlier, is that if teachers rub students up the wrong way or expect too much from them, the students retaliate at report time and the school is well aware of the need to keep its customers happy. A few negative comments and bye bye!

I've seen one teacher in tears as a couple of students decided to gang up on her and write very nasty comments.

[uk_teacher]

I didn't have any major problems working for these guys, but I made sure I got everything owed to me before leaving Indonesia.

There was a case of one teacher whose salary was withheld for several months. Apparently, she eventually got her money by threatening to inform EF head office about some financial irregularities, especially private students which they weren't reporting to head office.

MAKE SURE YOU GET YOUR MONEY BEFORE YOU LEAVE!