Job Discussion Forums

[travelNteach]

my friends that are middle class Indonesians generally have their own small homes/apt ( a few making mortgage payments but most own outright) and cars and 32+lcd screen tv's and the like. i dont see many teachers with these possessions.

the money is enough for a simple, reasonably comfortable lifestyle with few extras or luxuries.

[malu]

I agree. I earn more than 3 times the salary paid by my nearest EF and my standard of living is comfortable - no complaints there - but compared to that of my neighbours it remains fairly modest. My house is one of the humblest in the street, and is easily recognised due to the lack of a flashy new car on the driveway. There are a great many poor people in Indonesia but by the same token there seem to be quite a lot of not-so-poor Indonesians.

I am a teacher. Teachers are not top earners in any country that I know of. If you want riches don't become a teacher. Nonetheless I do get a bit tired of all that EF propoganda that their teachers are s-o-o-o-o much better off than your 'average' Indonesian.

[Elicit]

Thanks to all, for your responses to my original post. I have accepted an offer and will be re-locating to Indonesia in the coming weeks/months. Sorry don't want to be specific as 'the walls have ears�

Although I am unwilling to discuss my future employer in the open forum and will avoid threads/posts associated with them, I would like to continue to ask questions and possibly contribute posts to life and teaching in Indonesia in the future.

Many thanks to everyone I have corresponded with via pm and malu for his straight to the point and honest posts. No need to fret malu, I have not accepted an offer from the people you try so hard to promote.

I will have many questions in the following weeks on a range of issues. I will try to avoid things that have already been covered by using the search function first.

One for now though...

Should I bring an extra large jar of marmite?

[basiltherat]

[travelNteach]

totally agree with malu. ef is just propaganda and anyone thinking they live a comfortable lifestyle on that meager salary has never lived a comfortable lifestyle.

Elicit, best wishes. indo is a great place and i hope that u enjoyable year and meet all your personal and professional goals.

[extradross]

Let's look at it in terms of 'hourly pay' to clarify what low pay EF offers-only the Berlitz in Jakarta offers almost as little.[Not sure they are still in Business...] Approx 80 thou for an hour's teaching-TBI pay 175 thou. Direct English-around the same. Privates/company classes can net you 300 thou + per hour. Shame on EF for paying the 'same' rate for all their classes! 10 students following EF's IBT TOEFL prep course, paying over 2 million each per session, and the poor bloody teacher makes 80 thou for each of these classes....the owners of these franchises are laughing all the way to the bank and exploiting the naivety/ignorance of those who are 'lured' by the 'experience exotic sunny java' tag.

[jef dam]

Avoid the SWARA group at all costs. What initially seems like a good place to start soon reveals itself to be a joke shop outfit "exploiting the naivety/ignorance of those who are 'lured' by the 'experience exotic sunny java' tag". I have a list of grievances the length of my arm that I could rant about but I'd just be covering ground that has already been covered numerous times in this forum. Within 4 months of signing the contract you will want out but you won't be able to afford to get out.

[travelNteach]

jef dam, perhaps you should reconsider stating some of the problems. the moderators of this forum booted a lot of the older, more outspoken members of this forum off. also i think most of the teachers that work at EF Swara are intimidated about posting anything negative since gusti and all the center managers monitor this board. also they have keylogger programs that allow them to monitor private email accounts. so i guess the either must make positive posts or nothign at all, which explains why we dont hear much about them these days. several people on this forum are under the impression that things have improved dramaticall because the critical posts are somewhat dated. i am sure everyone would appreciate a good, balanced posts of the good and bad at swara so new, naive teachers can make a more informed decision before deciding to accept a contract with them.

[Kanga]

I see that the media has reported this week that the most senior police generals in the country earn between 15 & 24m per month including all benefits such as housing, cars, pension etc and are able to save up to $US10,000,000. apiece.

[malu]

Hee hee! One of the flashiest mansions on my housing estate is owned by a senior cop whose official salary is less than mine. I must be budgeting wrongly...

[jef dam]

I was not aware of the key logger programs, but I'm not even remotely surprised. Good thing I only ever use my personal laptop in the office! I see your point about providing a balanced view, and I'd fully intended air out this list on this forum until I began to doubt if it would have achieved anything. There are DoS' from EF Swara on this forum who tow the company line rather convincingly. If you were posting on here for the first time about a job offer from this company who would you be more inclined to believe, a "disgruntled ex-teacher*" or a person who is gainfully employed by the school and appears to have nothing but good things to say? I know I'd be inclined to not believe the person who for all intents and purposes looks like he or she has an axe to grind.


*Not disgruntled btw

[travelNteach]

but if u dont post anything, you take away their ability to make a choice. and if they are stupid enough to believe paid cheerleaders (dos), then they deserve what they get when they go to work for them. they try to make it sound like an impartial, balanced report, but they arent. i would judge for myself, probably taking in about 60% of what the teacher said and about 30% of what the dos writes.

i am not suggesting that you rant and rave. just give the facts, good and bad. no school is perfect and no DOSes are perfect. and there are probably several teachers that like working there, depending on their personalities and what does/does not bother them. if you present both sides without an emotional rant, some people will choose to work there and others will decide to look elsewhere. so go ahead and speak your peace, that is the purpose of this board.

[malu]

On another forum entirely there was a 'cheerleader' giving it rock about how she thought EF Cenkareng were really ace and how lots of people had worked there for multiple years and, like, how dare we mock that salary when most Indonesians live in a shack with a tin roof... then she broke contract with them and left after little more than 6 months!

She is back on that forum now thumping on about how fabulous her latest employer is. Maybe she'll turn up here one day.

[travelNteach]

i think she was on this forum first, showing her naivety and inexperience. then she "graduated" to the other forum. be interesting to see if she and her bf are able to cope with the demands of a real school. all the best to them, but quite shocked a school would hire them with only 6 months experience. they must be really desperate. just goes to show that everyone can move up the ladder and no need to stay at EF for more than a year.

[jef dam]