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My first experience of an international school in Malaysia, Vahid Javadi
A personal viewpont from Vahid Javadi
Originally I am from Iran, where I was an English teacher. In fact, English language teaching (ELT) is a huge business in Iran. This background motivated me to achieve my CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) in August 2007, as a ‘passport’ certificate to the global ELT market. Only a few months after my course, I was offered a job at a university in Malaysia, which involved teaching English to adolescents prior to enrolment on a degree programme. I was not alone – my wife and three-year old son were also with me. We had bittersweet moments: we cherished our new life in Malaysia, but we also found it challenging as we had limited experience of life outside Iran. In short, we were not ready for it, and this was one of those moves that once you make, you then have to go with it – as if you have fallen into a river and your options involve either swimming or drowning.
An aspect of overseas settlement that we had not seriously thought about was our son’s education, mainly because he was still too young. With hindsight, I feel we were ‘blind’ in 2007 when we relocated – totally unaware of our needs in a foreign country, especially considering that Internet-based communications were not as advanced as they are today. I had heard from a friend that an international school in Kuala Lumpur which her children attended was looking for teachers. I applied for that position with absolutely zero knowledge of what an international school meant. As a foreign national I was obliged to have a work permit for employment in Malaysia. During my interview the principal agreed to provide me with the necessary documents. However, weeks passed without any news. In fact, although I had begun work at the school, I still had the old employment pass in my passport. I was really under pressure from the HR department of the university to get the school to apply for a new work permit, but to no avail – the school would not cooperate, and all I could do was procrastinate. As weeks and months passed, I gradually realised that the school principal had not acted with complete honesty. I recall the day that my colleague, who was also newly recruited, told me that she was leaving because the school would not provide an employment pass, and that if the Immigration authorities found out she would be in serious trouble. However, I did not heed these warnings and continued work until May of the following school year (2009) when my old employment pass expired, I had to leave the country and we moved to Vietnam – which is another story.
Although I now hold a doctorate in educational leadership and management, I learnt my best lessons during the weeks and months I worked in this school. My intention in writing about my experience is not to disparage the school, but rather to share with current and aspiring international school teachers ways in which informed judgments can be formed prior to accepting an offer. Recently, I have conducted an extensive study of all the international schools in Malaysia, and have reached useful conclusions, which I hope to publish in another article in the near future. In this study, I divide the international schools in Malaysia into three categories: (a) expatriate-teacher majority/local-teacher minority; (b) expatriate-teacher minority/local-teacher majority; and (c) a balanced ratio between the expatriate and local teachers. My study suggests an implicit connection between the teacher status of an international school and the fees it charges its clients. In other words, a school in category A tends to demand higher, and in some cases far higher, fees than a school in category B. This indicates that a school that enjoys better revenues is in a more powerful position to meet the financial needs of its expatriate teachers than a school in a less strong financial position. Eight years since my first experience of work in an international school in Malaysia, I am now in a well-informed position to declare that my school belonged to category B. In fact, I recall that there were very few nonMalaysian teachers for a typical international school, and that its fees structure was very reasonable, reinforcing my earlier observation about a connection between the teacher status of an international school and its financial strength.
Most teachers these days rely on the Internet to seek employment in international schools, which may include visiting the dedicated websites of these schools. I would advise those who intend to teach in international schools in Malaysia to study seriously the teacher status and fees structure of these schools to determine which category their intended school fits best. This way they may be able to better engage in educating the students in whose hands our future lies.
