Job Discussion Forums

[mazzer]

My partner and I are moving to Surabaya. We will be working in one of the EF schools there. Does anyone have any information on the reputation of the schools, how to find housing (we want to live on our own) and how much it is to rent a house for a year?

Can you tell me how much I should expect to be paid? I have a degree, TESOL certificate and 3.5 years teaching experience. I think what I have been offered is actually quite low.

Many thanks.

[reddrake]

Hi Mazzer,

ABout your salary i don't really know. But i might be a little help for housing price, just so happen i rented my house about 5 mths ago.

The price range from 10 mil - 20 mil / year. This depends on the location and how big is the house.

If you are not planning to spend a lot of money try to avoid renting apartemen, eventhough it usually has all the amenities you would dream of, but the price is a killer, an apartemen can cost you about 15 mil-25 mil /month.

[guruengerish]

Hasn't EF confirmed salary and housing allowances yet?

They usually have an allowance if you're renting your own place.

You need to check that they have guaranteed to pay your airfares into Indonesia after 3 or 6 months, and the return fare plus Fiskal after completing your 12 month contract.

[mazzer]

Thank you for replies reddrake and guruengerish. Yes they have confirmed it. My salary is 7,500,000 rupiah a month and the housing allowance is 1,000,000, as is my partners. I only found this job forum two days ago. After looking through some of the previous entries I became aware that maybe what I was being offered was actually quite low for someone with my qualifications and experience.

My first ever EFL teaching salary in Spain was quite low. Since my first year of teaching I have taught at many very well respected schools and have had a very decent salary. I don't mind a slighlty lower than usual salary. I just don't want to find out once we get there and sign the contracts that we are getting a lot less than we should expect.

However, I will say that we are not teaching for the money. As long as we are not scrapping pennies together to have a beer and we can get away at the weekends and on holidays to places within Indonesia, then we'll be happy. We are quite happy to have basic accommodation.

Should I expect more money? Even if I should, is the salary I have mentioned above adequate? Thanks again

[rayman]

The salary sounds about right for EF. If that's what they've offered you, then you can pretty safely assume that's what you'll be receiving after your first month of working with them. But if you haven't received it yet, ask them to email a copy of the contract to you and enure there aren't any extra hidden costs etc.

From what reddrake says, you could get a decent house when combining your and your partner's housing allowance. That effectively leaves Rp7.5 million each a month. Broken down, it equates to Rp250 000/day each, which is doable. The problem however will arise when you have other expenses. The first few months could be tough as you get settled and need to buy creature comforts. You'll probably have to dig into savings a bit then. Likewise, if one of you gets sick. But otherwise for day to day living and weekend trips out of town, then Rp250 000 a day budget should be enough.

[guruengerish]

a couple of comments:

1) It seems to me that EF have a policy of paying a base rate to any teacher starting with a new franchise. So qualified or not, almost all teachers start at the same rate. The schools normally increase the salary in the 2nd year. 3rd year? who knows?

If you move to another EF school, you will normally return to "GO", and base salary.

2) When you are renting, there are many small costs to consider: these range from the maid (I believe foreigners have to employ a local maid). Then there are payments to be made to the security guard, the garbage collector, the water rates and numerous charities, esp Muslim orphanages. You can lose a lot of 'friends' by not paying!

I once calculated that in Jakarta, I was paying out around half a million a month.

Power can be expensive, and the rate depends on the amount of power you have contracted for.

The base allowance in villages is 400watt, which will run the TV and/or a small lamp, up to those using air conditioners, microwaves etc; the charges per kwh depend on your possible usage.

Cost of living is cheap, as everyone will tell you, but it's the little things that add up.[/u]

If you think of getting a car, don't even consider driving yourself for some time, as any accident you might have, will be your fault. You're a bule, therefore you are rich!

[reddrake]

my suggestion is rent a house on a little middle class housing area, and learn how to drive "bebek" or a small motorcycle, then get a driver license.

I live in Surabaya, so if you need more detail answer you can PM me

[mazzer]

Thanks guys for your replies. I really appreciate it.

[philbags]

45 mins/1 hour (minimum from the center), you can get a nice aircon, place for around 12/13 mil a year; gated compound kind of affair with sports fascillities etc - so they tell me. closer to the center you can double that price. cheaper places can be found but its a really good idea to send an indonesian in first to negotiate a price otherwise rents could double again cos of the colour of your skin.
Also, a lot of property owners in SBY want 2 years rent up front. there are a lot of places to look around so take your time, a lot of folks check into a kost for a month or so at first - cheaper than a hotel and more like a home.
happy hunting

[TEAM_PAPUA]

[KCA420]

edit

[bayabule]

Hi Mazzer, I hope this reply isn't too late for you. When are you coming to Sby?
I've been in Sby for 7 years and although I work at Kelt I know plenty of teachers who work at EF and are perfectly happy with the deal there. EF Surabaya seems to have a much better rep than EF in other parts of Indonesia and the owner seems to me to be a pretty sound guy.
You could always start there and, if you like Surabaya, then move onto one of the other schools there. There are teachers from EF who've moved to Kelt and IALF and those from Kelt who've moved to IALF and vice versa. It's a pretty small community and not hard to keep up with teachers from other schools and find out who's needing teachers.
As far as I can see the main differences between Kelt and EF are that Kelt get more holidays (8 weeks plus public holidays - there are lots of them!) and they're fixed so you can't choose your holiday dates which is inconvenient but it does mean that all the teachers are on holiday at the same time. If you and your partner are at the same EF branch you may have difficulty getting your hols at the same time.
Also most of the benefits are very similar (paid flights, visa, hours, type of classes etc) but at EF, although your monthly salary will be less, you get an extra month's salary at the end of the contract which we don't get at Kelt.
You might also consider IALF which pays more per month than Kelt but (as far as I know - correct me if I'm wrong, it may have changed) they don't pay housing. Also there's TBI which is relatively new and I don't know the pay and conditions but is occasionally looking for teachers. They're still quite small at the moment but I believe they're expanding and the DoS and some of the teachers are ex-EF Sby.
Kelt and EF mainly do general/business English courses with the majority being children's classes. IALF run IELTS courses ad do more academic English.
As regards housing. It'll depend on which EF branch you're working at. Although traffic's not as bad as say Jakarta, it's getting worse every year and you'll want to find somewhere near where you (and you partner if she's at a different branch) work.
Yes, getting a small motorbike (bebek) eventually is a very good idea - most teachers have one- you'll save yourself a lot of money on taxis and a lot of stress of dealing with taxi drivers and sitting in traffic.
Prices depend on which part of the city you live in and yes, it could be anywhere from 10 - 20 mil per year upwards. Don't bother with serviced apartments - I don't know a teacher who lives in one, I doubt whether both your salaries together would even cover it. You can get a great house (and hire a maid if you want to) for much much less.
A couple of important things to bear in mind are:
1. Most landlords in Sby only want to rent on minimum 2 years contract, paid up front. I do know teachers who've negotiated 1 year contracts but generally it's 5 or 2 years. This means you have to pay 2 years rent at the beginning of the contract (so find out if EF will be paying housing in advance or monthly. To be honest it'll probably be monthly as realistically they're not going to hand over that amount of money to a new teacher they don't know yet).
As previous posters have pointed out, you will then be responsible for EVERYTHING. So, if for example the roof caves in at the first drop of rain, YOU have to pay to get it fixed. Houses usually come unfurnished too so you may have to buy everything including fridge, cooker, air con units etc.
Having said that there are teachers who've managed to find 1 year contracts and/or furnished rentals but expect a lot of house hunting and negotiating.
2. You'll find smaller cheaper houses in kampungs (traditional housing areas, almost like small villages within the city) but kampungs can vary on their attitude to foreigners. This ranges from extremely tolerant to insanely friendly and constantly in you business to outright hostile. It depends on the RT, who is the leader (a sort of village head) of the kampung. I've heard stories from all across the spectrum. You might be expected to provide marriage certificates, paint your house a certain colour, not have visitors after a certain time of night etc. Or you may find everyone very helpful, friendly and welcoming. It really depends on the area. What is certain is that you'd have to expect to be living your life under a certain amount of scrutiny as everyone will want to know everything about you. Whatever the situation you will have to be respectful of their way of doing things.
If you pay more, you can live in more middle class areas, where people care less about what you're doing but there's less of a feeling of community. It takes some of the "experience" out of it but you may find it easier to deal with at least at first.

Anyway, my advice to you would be to (if you're taking the job) just go on over there and sort it out as you go along. EF have free teachers' housing so you and your partner could first move into one of them while you sort out your own place. Other teachers and the school staff should be more than happy to give advice and help you find something. You might find there's someone from EF or another school who's leaving and either looking for someone to take over their rent contract or whose house you can rent next.
If you're a memebr of facebook, there's a group called Surabaya EFL Teachers - Past and Present. Not much happens on it but try posting any questions you have, someone might answer!
All the best and if you have any more questions on Surabay, feel free to PM me.

[bayabule]

Oh, BTW, when I talked about moving between schools I meant AFTER you've completed your year's contract. The DoS's of most of the schools here know each other personally and there's a sort of unspoken agreement that no one will employ/headhunt someone still under contract with another school.
Having already sent my post and then re-read the previous posts I should also add that, with your experience you probably could do better salary-wise in Surabaya but that what EF Surabaya offer is by far not the worst when you consider that their conditions are good, and they're not known to shaft people. There are a few smaller operations in Sby with very bad reps. Personally I'd take a lower salary over crap working conditions and the fear of immigration coming to get you if you piss off the boss's wife. 7.5 mil x two per month would do you both ok. Living expenses would be shared and Surabaya is very easy and cheap to get out of (which is the main selling point of the place if I'm honest) and you can do a lot of travelling from there. Booze is actually rather expensive compared to Jak or Bali but there are cheaper places to drink and I've never met a teacher yet that just couldn't budget for a Bintang or 10!

[mazzer]

Hi Bayabule

thanks for all your advice it has been extremely helpful and reassuring.

[mazzer]

Hi Baybule,

we are coming in September so maybe we'll meet you. Thanks again for all the information you gave me. I have never done much research into the places I have taught at before now. Thankfully I have been very lucky and have only had good experiences. My partner is a lot less of a "fly by the seat of your pants" person than I and he started doing some research. I found this forum and we got quite a fright when we saw all the bad entries on EF. However, we did notice that there was nothing about EF Surabaya and that's why I asked about their reputation.

Thank you so much for the time you put into your reply. The information was really helpful and much appreciated. My partner and I are very much looking forward to living in Surabaya and working at EF.