Job Discussion Forums

[substance]

Does anyone know anything about this place? I may be offered a position there, but want to get some more info on it.

The contract is $2700 monthly, $6000 housing per year, 4 tickets for 4me, wife and 2 kids, full medical insurance except pre-natal and delivery, five days a week (sat-wed), split shifts, 45 hour week with 30 contact hours.

As I've just finished my MA in Applied Linguistics looking to get my foot in the door so to speak in the Middle East with not much experience, would any of you recommend this position?

Churrs!

Sub

[veiledsentiments]

If you look about halfway down this page, there is a thread about this place... at least I think it is the same place...

VS

[substance]

Thanks, but I'm not sure if it is... anyway... here's the site (in Arabic )


http://www.alfac.edu.sa/Ar/

As opposed to this one (the one mentioned in the thread below):

http://www.kfs.sch.sa/en/our_school.htm

If anyone's got info I'd appreciate it!

[kachimama]

Accepting a position at ALFAC is probably the worst possible decision you could make - okay, so it would be second to trying a shawarmah sandwich in the district of Batha. The salary they are offering you, who hold a Masters, is an insult; you can make far more at a number of other places including The Saudi British Center, Wall Street, King Fahad Univesity of Petroleum and Minerals, Sabco, etc. etc.

Salary aside, one of these days I intend to write a lengthy post about why NOT to teach at ALFAC (I've worked for ALFAC, so I speak from experience). PM me for details.

In a post from long ago Scot 47 advised not to go there "even if you're desperate". I agree with the mordant critic wholeheartedly.

[substance]

^^^

Cheers!

You have a PM waiting.

[kachimama]

This isn�t the detailed, lengthy piece I wanted to post, but it should suffice for now.

There have been several natives who�ve worked for ALFAC, most of whom have been South Africans. Amongst the natives were three Americans, one Scot, and at present there is a Canadian and a Briton. The Briton is the only one ever to have renewed his contract - I believe the Canadian is nearing the end of his own - but rumour has it that both the Briton and the Canadian are heading elsewhere.

Warning bell: if most native-English speaking teachers haven�t renewed their contract, odds are that prospective natives won�t either.

Let me begin with the pros of working at the academy: the salary is almost always paid on time, although whatever you make in overtime is deemed a separate payment and is always late; the students, who are usually adults, are generally polite albeit lazy; and your colleagues are friendly though not a few can be quite nosy and rather envious.

The cons: you�re required to be at the academy for 45 hours a week, regardless of the fact that you normally only work for 30 hours (it's a split shift: first from 8 AM to 12 PM, and then from 4 PM to 9PM � be advised that few shops, banking services, etc. are open during the siesta); the academy prohibits private tutoring (yet no other institute does so) even though you can command a very high rate tutoring privately; overtime is a paltry 30 riyals ($10 US) per hour; with the exception of your annual month-long vacation you are only allowed to leave the Kingdom for one of the two Eid holidays (relatedly, in order to leave the kingdom for any vacation, you're required to seek another teacher to act as a guarantor: if you don�t return, he must consequently pay the equivalent of three months� worth of your salary to the academy); you aren't paid your salary while on vacation; finally - and I don�t know which benevolent soul in the administration devised this one - if you are absent for the morning shift without a doctor�s note, both the morning and the evening shift of that same day are deducted from your salary.

This is to say nothing of the way the teachers are treated like dogs and are forever criticized yet rarely appreciated.

Which leads me to the most glaring problem: the administration. Unsurprisingly, it�s led by a Mussolini-like megalomaniac. The administration is duplicitous, known for underhanded tactics (including unnecessarily complicating matters and habitually putting off its obligations to teachers), vindictive (if you have a fall out, the least they will do is refuse you a letter of non objection, which is a sine qua non for working for a different employer in Saudi, but the admin. is naturally capable of much more), and its list of virtual crimes is so long I would probably succumb to arthritis were I to list them here. Most recently, however, the administration cheated quite a few teachers out of a significant portion of the housing allowance.

Did I mention the teachers have virtually no private life due to the working hours? By the way, if you�re married, I would be remiss not to mention that the wife of a former South African teacher was followed by students. And I�d rather not elaborate on that.

This isn�t to say that one should avoid Saudi Arabia altogether, but there is still a lot better than ALFAC even inside the Kingdom.

[ootii]