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[UKEel]

WARNING!!!

NOT SO Quality Education Holding BACK YOUR MONEY Company

Let me begin by stating that I knew QEHC reputations was not impeccable, but I never knew it was going to be so bad. In fact, the worst.

For me personally, joining this company was going to be strictly on a temporary basis (3 months). It was the longest 3 months I have ever encountered.

The situation was that the majority of the foreign teaching staff on a nationwide scale had not received their May/June salary and their final settlements by the 14th June 2017. This caused massive concerns with teachers regarding their departure from the KSA on the conclusion of their contracts, resulting in the cancellation or rebooking of their flights at their own expense.

Furthermore, QEHC were only prepared to offer partial demobilisation flight costs. This information was only divulged to employees in the last month of their contracts, which I have subsequently been informed is in breach of Saudi Labour laws.

Another significant factor to inform you about is that since March 2017 all salaries were delayed. In hindsight this should have raised concerns, but that is why it is called “hindsight”.

Generally, many posts that people submit on forums about companies online are often not substantiated by supporting accounts and/or evidence when encountering disputes with previous/current employers. However, in this instance I have…and the majority of these communication have come from the Project Manager: Mr A B (Emails 2, 4 and 5).

Below are the most significant communications sent out by QEHC to various centres throughout the KSA.

These are the events that unfolded over the latter stages of JUNE 2017, for all QEHC teaching staff.

Email #1 Date: 8 June 2017 at 17:24:30 GMT+3

Dear Xxxx

I hope all is well,

We would like to inform you that salaries will be paid early next week, final settlements will be sent out to teachers for signing at the same time.

We apologize for the delay, however, this was due to circumstances out of our control.

Thanks



--

,Best regards

Xxxxx Xx
Projects Coordinator

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Email #2 Date: 11th June 2017 (5:06 p.m.)
Good afternoon all

As of 5pm today, 54 final settlements have been returned by finance and the remaining will be completed tomorrow.

I have met with the management today regarding salaries and final settlements and have raised the concern shared by all. I have been assured by the Head of Finance that teachers will be paid prior to leaving.

LIE. This did not happen. All staff throughout the KSA only received their salary for May by the 15th of June. Which may I add was TWO weeks late.


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Email #3 Date: 14th June 2017
Dear colleagues,

This is what I learnt after speaking to the high management this afternoon;

1) The company is out of money. OUCH!!!!!!
2) We will not receive our final settlements this week.
3) There is a chance we might not receive it next week either as all businesses will be shut down for EID.
4) The company might transfer all final settlements to our international bank accounts. An official email has yet to be sent out.

Note: If you plan to stay and collect your final settlement yourself, I suggest rescheduling your flights for the first week of July.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Email #4 Date: 14th June 2017
The dilemma for staff was to choose one of the two options below. However, if we chose the second option, would we ever receive our final settlements.
I took a gamble and opted for option 2.
Good afternoon

Unfortunately the current update regarding final settlements is not as I had hoped.

Due to the ongoing salary delays with the company, the final settlements are not going to be paid by tomorrow and could take up to 10 days. Many other projects are yet to receive May salaries and the company has prioritised this.

These are the options given to us by the company:

1. Teachers can wait in country until the current issue has been resolved and receive the settlements, then leave. You will not be asked to leave the accommodation till then.

2. Teachers can leave as originally planned and receive the settlements in their international bank accounts. For this to happen, you are required to email a screenshot of your bank account details and this will be attached to your final settlement. An official email will be sent from the finance department confirming that they will send the money to your designated account.

All settlements should be signed and submitted and processed by HR by tomorrow, leaving only the final step of transferring the money.

No employee is exempt from this situation and I can only express my apologies and disappointment about this whole situation. Each of you should please inform your HT of how you would like to proceed.


__________________________________________________________________________________

Email #5 Dated: 15th June 2017

The content of the following email is very much understated

Dear wonderful staff

It has been a roller coaster of a semester. I would like to extend my gratitude for all your hard work during what can only be described as a very challenging few months.

I am still waiting for some signed final settlements. All but a couple have been uploaded. Please return them as soon as possible. I don't want anyone to be left out.

Please excuse any shortfalls on my behalf, it has been very difficult at times in the central office. I hope you all leave with a sense of satisfaction and should be proud of the work you have put in this year.

Let's see what the next year will bring.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
I would also like to add that posts on various forums about this company are indeed genuine issues and/or grievances, because I experienced them too.

Additionally, what I would also like to see is that any reputable recruiter and/or recruitment website to seriously reconsider not letting the aforementioned company from representing or advertising for new recruits. Furthermore, hotels and conference centres on a global scale should also have a serious rethink when QEHC request the use of their premises for recruitment practices.

In addition, I cannot believe that Technical Vocational Training Corporation (TVTC) does and continues to accommodate QEHC as their nationwide provider for their education centres in the KSA.

One final point to add, is that they have now rebranded the company name to QUALITY EDUCATION COMPANY. They have simply dropped the “HOLDING”.

As of the 25th July 2017, I was paid in full. Thankfully, for me the debacle is over.

To conclude, my unwavering advice to anybody who is thinking of joining this company is… DON’T.

[Leno]

Take what you were given and exit ASAP.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/in-depth/features/saudi-arabia-deports-egyptian-expats-unknown-destiny-2088523107


Leena ElDeeb

Wednesday 16 August 2017 17:00 UTC

Last update: Thursday 17 August 2017 9:04 UTC
CAIRO – “The difference between life in Cairo and life in Riyadh is like the difference between the sky and land in terms of cleanliness, street infrastructure and order,” Abdullah Rabei, 27, told Middle East Eye.

Rabei was living in Riyadh for almost three years, working in human resources. Five months ago, as he was planning to buy a new car for SAR 65,000 ($17,000), he got the news that he was being laid off work. He was given two months to leave Saudi and bid his friends farewell.
This came in the process of tightening the company’s grip on spending, so they started letting go of employees,” he said.

The company in Saudi - which Rabei preferred not to name - got downsized from 2,000 employees to 800 this year. Saudi Arabia is in financial crisis because of a collapse in oil revenues that account for 80 percent of government income.

Rabei, father of a one-year-old boy, tried to transfer his sponsorship to another company in Saudi Arabia, but the company refused under the "kafala" system, which is widely enforced in Gulf countries. It requires foreign workers to get their employer's consent to be able to change jobs or leave the country.
It hasn't been easy for Rabei and his family to resettle in the bustling capital of Cairo.

“I was very upset, I returned to the ‘mother of the world’ [Egypt, as locals like to call it] but I was in agony - because the ‘mother of the world’ isn’t the same as it was once upon a time," he said.

For three months, Rabei could not find a job with a decent salary. He applied for positions in human resources at several companies and they offered salaries that ranged from EGP 1,200 to 1,300 ($67.5 to $73.2) per month. Additionally, they required him to commute more than 20 kilometres away from home, adding further expenses after the recent spike in petrol prices to up to 50 percent.

“How can I go to offices that far away with that salary? How can I pay for house rent, water bills, medical treatment, even pampers?” he said.

In addition to basic life expenses, working in the Gulf with a salary at least five times the average wage in Egypt, Rabei accumulated a large amount of debt, which he is now unable to pay. Frustrated, Rabei settled for a job with low pay, but within walking distance from his home in the Cairo suburb of Maadi.

'Mother of the world'

Hossam Mazoura, 35, has been living with his parents in Gharbia province along with his wife for a few months, because he can't afford to pay the rent. He previously made a decent living working as a technician in a Saudi company in the eastern city of Dammam. He was employed there for six years, before he was laid off in May.
The financial cuts on the projects happened all of a sudden after the onset of the Saudi-led military campaign on Yemen in 2015, Mazoura recalls. It's the same year the Saudi government posted a record $98bn budget deficit, causing many of the kingdom’s construction projects to be suspended or cancelled.

“There was a budget deficit so they started letting go of some people and others continued to work seven to eight months without salaries,” he said. “When these workers asked for their money, the managers would tell them to go file complaints at the labour office, but the labour office wouldn’t help at all.”

Mazoura applied for yet another job one week ago and he hopes he'll be able to secure it and move out of his parents' house.

Dr Adel Hemeedd Yaacoub, economics professor at Al Azhar University, said that although the military campaign on Yemen is a financial burden, the main factor leading to this crisis in Saudis' labour market is the decline in oil revenues.
According to the latest official data, there are more than 10.1 million foreign expats in Saudi Arabia, out of the total population of 30.8 million in 2014. According to the Egyptian labour ministry, this included two million Egyptians in 2016, who have been widely affected by wave of lay-offs and budget cuts.

“Egyptian expats are both trained and cheap, in addition to their Arabic language which makes them favoured among the other nationalities,” Yaacoub told MEE.

'Egypt is a bit harsh'

Saudi Arabia's biggest construction firm, the Binladen Group, started letting go of foreign expats one year ago. The company laid off around 77,000 foreign workers in 2016.
Abdel Qader decided that he has better chances in Jeddah, where he will look for a new job with better pay. He explained that the average salary for his position in Jeddah is six times more than that offered in Egypt.

“The salary compared with the living expenses in Jeddah wasn’t very generous, but one could live with it,” he said.

Unemployment in Saudi

Another reason behind the recent lay-offs is that the kingdom has taken steps to close off different areas of employment to foreigners, in a bid to to create jobs for young Saudis and reduce the unemployment rate among nationals.
According to official figures, Saudi Arabia’s unemployment rate climbed to 12.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017. The Vision 2030 plan released last year calls for a million new jobs for Saudis in the sector by 2020.

The Saudi Arabian vision for 2030 outlines several construction projects in collaboration with huge foreign companies.

'It would be very difficult'

Mohamed Rizk, 36, lived and worked in Riyadh as a civil engineer at the Hashem Contracting and Trading Company for four years until he was laid off in February 2017.

Rizk’s wife and three daughters lived in Smouha, Alexandria, while he was in Saudi Arabia working to provide for his family.
( not full article, read on webpage if you could have access to it)

[Foo_Fighters_Dave]

Let me begin by stating that I knew QEHC reputations was not impeccable, but I never knew it was going to be so bad. In fact, the worst.

For me personally, joining this company was going to be strictly on a temporary basis (3 months). It was the longest 3 months I have ever encountered.

You knew how bad they were but still took the job. Anyone that takes a teaching job from them after knowing what it could be like gets no sympathy from me.

I am glad you got your money but I hope this threads and posts about QEHC stop. I get it. People take the job after repeated warnings about their lack of ethics.