Job Discussion Forums

[like2answer]

To Gauguin - I actually like people who stand on soap boxes, but...

Even given that for most of us that�s an added attraction, EFL teachers still have the right to a fair salary, good housing and a safe working environment. I�m afraid comments like ��.people should go HOME if they don't like it here�don�t wash.

maybe it doesn't wash because you are on the soap box! You need the soap for it to really get washed, or maybe you don't know that because your maid washes your clothes.

[caliph]

Maybe the pay increase was in 1997, whatever, it's still 10 years since a pay increase. Have things been geting cheaper where you are?

[globalnomad2]

Caliph--Well, I was at Dubai Women's starting 1997. We moved to the new campus in the Fall of '98 or Spring '99 and I remember specifically that the pay increase above and beyond the usual increment (which was only abut 4% then) occurred after our move. My salary was somewhere close to Dh 13,000 then and the increase added about Dh. 700-800. We were all talking about the increase and all enjoying it, so honestly, I am not delusional

Cheaper here? You mean RAK, where I am now? Only rent, which I don't pay.

[WOW]

[globalnomad2]

OK, I stand corrected. I remember the increase amounted to 700-800DH. There is no need to call me insulting names, however. Unless, of course, it was all in good-natured spirit...hhhmmmm...

[Gordon]

Does it really matter what the name of the salary increment is? An increase is an increase. I have been teaching at a Japanese university the past 5 years and my raise has been less than 1%/year. That is even after getting a graduate degree. That is a sad salary slave!

[veiledsentiments]

The reality is that if you work, you are a "sad salary slave." Especially in TEFL... what we are doing here is just comparing what the slaveholders pay...

VS

[globalnomad2]

Veiled is quite right. ESL/EFL people at universities are strictly second-class faculty. We teach 18-20 hours instead of the normal full load of 12 (in the US, anyway), we get observed constantly, we are always being told how and what to teach, we don't get tenure, and can get fired at any time. As an undergraduate I had a number of content professors who had only master's degrees, not PhD.s, but they were professors and never had to put up with the conditions we do. Like PhD faculty, they could teach and do their research and be left alone. But MAs in TESOL? Cannon fodder--grunts, peons. That's why at my advanced age I have finally, after a life of travel (the only benefit of an EFL career) applied to some PhD programs in another field. Moreover, I already own a house outright in the US and have another one on mortgage, so I am not terribly impressed with getting a rent-free apartment in the Middle East when the salaries are merely the level of the median salary in the US. I can deal with income taxes...they're lower than in Europe by far.

Having said all this, I do want to give a nod to my current employer, GMU in RAK, because they are trying their best to reduce hours, and I will get a revolving benefit of a 14-hour week next semester, and we'll have decent on-campus housing if they ever get the new campus built, and the HR Manual states we will have automatic increments. So if I don't get accepted into the extremely competitive programs to which I've applied, I'll be glad to keep working at GMU as things stand now.

Gordon--about Japan! I was there from 1988 to 1992, at an American and then a Japanese college, and salaries were far higher then than they are now! Japan has become a basket case for EFL.

[Stephen Jones]

[globalnomad2]

Stephen--Yes. I am not especially addicted to a tax-free life, as hundreds of millions of people throughout Europe, America and East Asia pay taxes and are still comfortable. In Houston, where my properties are, if your house is paid for, you can certainly live on $30K a year, and I mean in nice leafy neighborhoods, in a single-family house. If you're paying a mortgage, there won't be much savings on that income, but it's definitely doable, especially if your company pays most of the health insurance. But the median US income is now about $40K. Schoolteachers in Houston average more than that. (Not ESL people at colleges, of course). Oh--and some states such as Texas don't impose state income tax.

[thursday12]

Is HCT into the Fire to Hire mode like University of Qatar? Or do they value staff and keep them on?

How are staff treated? With respect or like slogs?

[NadiaK]

Thursday - to be honest, probably somewhere in between, but much closer to the "with respect" end of the cline than the other. Personally, I think they're one of the best employers in the region - I'm well into my second contract with HCT, and am very happy working for them.

[veiledsentiments]

I don't believe that there has ever been anything even resembling a mass firing at HCT or anywhere else in the UAE other than Sharjah University in its first years. (ignoring the notorious meltdown of the MLI... since it was gone in the end... not a fire to hire routine)

I don't think there is any place (in the world?) that hasn't had times that individuals were terminated unjustly, but the ones that I encountered in the UAE (or Oman) seemed to be personality clashes between teacher and management.

It is hugely expensive to hire and fire people repeatedly...

VS

[NadiaK]

Coming back to address the first set of questions - faculty are generally kept on as long as they want to stay at HCT. (There are exceptions, but it's not common.) Supervisors, on the other hand, come and go somewhat more rapidly.

[Alecca]