Job Discussion Forums

[TheZenith]

I've seen a couple of comments on this website and others requesting information about this little known company, so I'm here to provide a cautionary tale.

I worked for QEHC for the 2014-2015 academic year at King Khalid University, Mahala Campus with 25 other native speakers. I believe KKU is their only substantial project for native speakers after losing the Princess Nora University contract last year. If you want further evidence of this company's complete lack of scruples just search for details of that debacle.

Problems at the project started very early as teachers were housed in a hotel in the Al-balad area of Khamis Mushait instead of Abha as their contracts stated. Many were promised their housing allowance and some were even promised compound accomodation. So it came as a suprise to be housed in a hotel in a slum area of a city where rents are relatively cheap. The company refused housing allowance to all teachers, even those with families. Teachers complained but the company didn't budge claiming that they had booked the hotel for till June.

During the January holidays many teachers had booked flights tickets to go home or on holiday. One teacher needed to go to the UK to see his sick father. The company promised exit visas to the staff but the visas only materialised after a meeting with the Dean who then called the CEO of the company.

Three weeks ago the company asked teachers to purchase tickets home with the promise of being refunded, even though the contract statd tickets would be issued. The project manager told teachers to book their tickets for the 10th June. Many of the teachers booked the tickets with no expectation of the money being returned. The company published a list of destinations with the amount they were willing to reimburse a week later. At the end of the contract they provided final settlement payments where only half the ticket was paid if you did not resign with them. This however was obscured by the fact that on the by the end of the working day on the 10th of June no exit visas had been issued. Many teachers left for the airport in the hopes that visas could be issued on time. In the end they had been given single exit-reentry visas and many left on these visas. Teachers leaving on the 11th of June tried to get final exit visas but were REFUSED even at the behest of the Dean who warned the company that a new contract had not been signed yet. The teachers have now left Saudi with the hopes of rectifying the problem from their home countries or are not planning to return.

According to rumour this plan was hatched in headquarters so that the company can negotiate with teachers while they are out of the country. At present the company does not have other projects to offer but believe some new projects will be secured soon.

[plumpy nut]

Wicked! Ramadan Kareem.

[buravirgil]

That is some dirty, damn pool. But it's what experienced posters to this forum have said for many years: Contractors cannot be trusted. Policy-wise, the need for a consortium of private enterprise was necessary to augment what few, established institutions exist in KSA to achieve the scale of development proposed, but 1 and 3-year company contracts result in the very shenanigans you describe.

[Captain Willard]

Some here will state that the official work visa/iquama is the only way to work in the Golden Sandbox. Others prefer to work with visit/business visas because they can leave any time that they want without the need to worry about exit visas, etc. This story should remind the gentle reader how well contract law protects the worker here.

The gentle reader should remember that Saudi law does not recognize the Western concept of agency. Therefore, once anyone leaves the country, no Saudi lawyer can bring a claim in any court. Employers can and do use their wasta to have visas cancelled once the employee has left the Golden Sandbox. An employer who "asks" employees to buy their own tickets should be considered highly suspect to engage in further forced renegotiations. Frequently, the employer will not permit the employee to buy his/her own tickets without some penalty, as the business is usually referred to some cousin, or bartered in exchange for some other favor.

Extreme caution with this employer is advised.

[RustyShackleford]

Just turned down an offer from these guys due to "job offer" details being real sparse and sketchy. Feel like I dodged a bullet with you writing this so thanks for sharing and good luck!

[plumpy nut]

If they won't buy the ticket outright I suspect there will be further conniving down the road. Anytime a company is a little less than normal in things like airfare, and in other things like maybe unusually short contracts, etc., something shady is there. I think a usual contract is around 8 pages with all the stuff they have to refer to. A lot of companies now are advertising contract with "competitive" pay. However when you read what they are giving you, sometimes its accommodation not provided, or the additional money for accommodation is insufficient to live alone in an apartment, at least in Riyadh. Like I've mentioned before you don't want to share a Saudi apartment with a single bathroom and their quality sewage line arrangement, where you get to smell everytime your roommate takes a dump.

[Stallion]

One should steer away from QEHC once they lost the contract with PNU overnight teachers were asked to work under Al Hussan at KSU , some got put in schools over all it was a mess. The Saudi office workers were arrogant and rude had no consideration for the teachers who were foreign in the country , because they were afraid of the owner of the company who was referred to as the president of the company they used him as a threat but teachers didn't care who he was which came as a shock.
Generally it's a very unreliable company brought teachers in KSA on false hope , bad accommodation in a rat infested neighbourhood in riyadh , teachers constantly complaining to the university about bad treatment in the end some teachers took them to the labour board only to get what was owed to them.
Look else where for better employers leave QEHC quick

[plumpy nut]

I worked at King Khalid Mahala, although not for QEHC. Avoid Avoid Stay Away! The students in the program that I taught at were part of a government funded program, of course they all are. Most of the students had prior to the program no chance of obtaining a job in Saudi Arabia. It was a last chance program and the performance of the students reflected it.

The program only allowed 20 minutes for prayers, although the mosque was next door and prayers could be done in 10 minutes. Knowing the Saudis wouldn't only take 20 minutes and there was nothing I could do about it, I would give them up to 40 then mark them off late or actually absent. The students, all of them, started complaining that I didn't understand how important their religion is to them and that they needed more time. Actually like I said, for prayers all they needed was 10 minutes, I was told this by other Arab teachers. This complaining went on and on and I finally told them after hearing again, "you don't know how important our religion is to us", that I didn't care. A lot of the students walked out.

At that point the plotting started, because they are a duplicitous bunch. They would ask ridiculous questions like why does "a" come before a consonant sound and why does "an" come before a vowel sound? I would say there was no reason other than in English that's the way it was done. They would come back with an infantile "but why" question. There was lots of other infantile "but why" questions to come. When their individual complaints to the administration didn't work, they signed a paper, all of them were goaded into it, and then I was removed from the teaching post. This paper of course was passed around right in front of me during class.

Another much more affable Native English Teacher has his entire class of students go to the dean and complain about grades, trying to get him removed. The teacher kept telling the dean that he was honest - still not understanding the nature of teaching in Saudi Arabia. The dean finally told him just give them the grades.

These were the most pathetic students I have ever taught - pathetic even by Saudi standards. I have taught in many different countries and I have never seen anything like these students. Stay away from any job where you have to teach at King Khalid University Masala. Most of the teachers that I worked with and knew had absolutely no respect for the program and probably not any for the university either. Stay Away Stay Away from the Abha area!

Moving away from the crap Abha students issue and how you shouldn't teach there, a fellow teacher was telling all of us an interesting story about
a teacher teaching at an Airforce Base in Saudi Arabia. One of his students could not correctly put on a wheel on the aircraft at the base. This was no matter how much they trained him so they failed him at the training. He went and complained to one of the officers trying to remove the teacher from his position. However the general in charge essentially said if he can't correctly put on a wheel then he gets an F. The student subsequently went to one of his powerful Uncles and the Uncle was able to get the teacher removed regardless of what the General said.

Another interesting story was told to us by the same individual. Apparently a Saudi pilot needed to eject from his fighter plane but the ejection seat wasn't properly maintained so he was killed when his plane went down in the ocean. Subsequently during the recovery of the jet, the brilliant Saudi team connected two cables to two posts on the aircraft to lift it out, the aircraft required three cables at three different posts on the plane to be lifted up. The plane fell back into the ocean with the pilot still in the plane. What he was saying was that the jet and the pilot were still sitting in the ocean at the time we were talking to him.

All of these stories give a good description of the qualities of Saudis and what it is like to teach there. Go ahead and give it a try if the money seems to your liking. Might advice though is take the money for a little while then run back to your home country for a real teaching job or just plain job.

[nomad soul]

Plumpy nut:

What do your issues with Saudi students have to do with this particular employer?