Job Discussion Forums

kanterbrau · Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 38

Very nicely put, VS, as always.

If, after all that's been said on this site, anyone still decides to get involved with these people then I think the phrase to bear in mind is "aim low".

Good Luck.

DesertIsland · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 12 Location: Ohio

yes yes

veiledsentiments · Joined: 20 Feb 2003 Posts: 17644 Location: USA

It is totally a matter of supply and demand. As long as there are people willing to accept bad jobs for lousy pay... as long as employers care only about getting warm bodies... things will continue to go downhill.

Once they 'privatized' education, it has gone downhill along with everything else...

VS

kanterbrau · Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 38

Once again VS has hit the nail squarely on the head. Further, the sad fact of the matter is that as long as the recruiter gets his cut for every one of these "warm bodies" that gets off the plane - regardless of how brief his or her stay might be - this unfortunate situation will continue. A shame. Oman deserves better.

Good Luck.

Hsinchuguy · Joined: 09 Apr 2003 Posts: 109 Location: Toronto

I'm currently teaching under contract to Bahwan Cybertek in Muscat so I think I'm in a good position to comment on it. To anyone considering coming over here to work for them I would say don't, period. It's not that it's so terrible here, after all Oman is a nice place, it's just that they lie and lie, no matter what they tell you in the interview or write in the contract, it all changes once you get here.
The following items have been found by myself and others to be particularly troubling.

-they tell you that you get 30 paid vacation days a year, what they don't tell you is that it's up to the discretion of the school's director who invariably says no. You go back to them, but they're covered, they didn't say no right?
-housing, I asked to be in Muscat because I prefer living in the city. They put us about 60 km. from Muscat in some grotty outlying area. It's much worse for the teachers in outlying places like Nizwa and Ibra because they're out on the outskirts of much smaller provincial towns.
-hours, they tell you up to 18 hours in class, 6 in office, wrong, what everyone here has is 18 class and 18 mandatory office hours.
-they don't tell you that they withhold about OR100 month from your pay to be returned to you if you complete the contract.
The whole lot of us Bahwan teachers in the Muscat area (around 30) held a meeting and were asked to give a show of hands to the following question; "given what you now know about Bahwan, would you have signed with them?" No one raised their hands. I estimate that about 60 to 70% of the teachers will leave before the end of contract

Any questions, PM me

HippieGirl · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 2 Location: Oman

Don't forget that they are now trying to screw us out of our salary from the last month of our contracts!