Job Discussion Forums

[christmas]

Does anyone have experience or knowledge of this school.
It sounds laid back for Istanbul. Can it be true????

[wardaw]

double post

[wardaw]

Full Disclosure: I worked for IIS this past year. They currently owe me a couple of thousand dollars, and left me without a job in the middle of the school year. So take this for what it's worth:

IIS should not be confused with IICS, Istanbul International Community School, which is a different place altogether.

Good Points:

-Pay is decent if you're not Turkish - 2300 USD for, depending on the situation, 25-30 hours per week.

-Great co-workers. I generally liked the people that I worked with including the management.

-The international students are generally good kids. They can be rambunctious but are usually good-spirited.

I would say most of the time I liked working there.

Bad Points:

IIS really isn't an international school. It is a Turkish school with an international department. It has the same trappings of your typical fly-by-night Turkish private school:

- Poorly managed, disorganized, poorly supplied (although the students pay 18,000 TL per year)

- Run by corrupt businessmen who put profit before education. I made the mistake by thinking they actually cared about education and the students, and paid for it. Foreign teachers receive their money in an envelope. Turkish teachers receive part of their salary this way as well to avoid paying SSK and payroll taxes.

-Pleasing the clients is definitely a priority over quality education. The parents are never shy about complaining and many are generally busy bodies.

-School will promise a work visa, but you will have to pay for all the translations and a 6-month residence permit while waiting for the paper work to come in. I'm sure a lot of that has to do with the government, but consideration for the teacher is always the lowest priority with these people.

-If you have to teach the Turkish classes, it will be just as difficult as working at a Turkish private school. Luckily, I did not have to.

Bottom line for me, it is not a bad place to work if you don't mind the minuses I listed. If you're an actual trained educator, it can be frustrating to constantly have all your lessons and planning thrown out the window for any thousands of reasons they find for interrupting the normal weekly schedule. I found the workload to be a little bit much as well-- 3 grade lvls of English, plus 2 other subjects, plus a homeroom and various things that entails.

There's my two cents, anyway...

[delal]

Hi
You should maybe look also at the Educational forum on the "My Merhaba" website (left hand side, at the bottom)
Very revealing comments about the school from disgruntled parents
www.merhabaforums.com/educational-topics-f15/