The way it works is that around November 15th existing employees will request a transfer to their preferred school. After the internal transfers are completed, they will post the remainder of the openings on the QSI website. This will be the time to get hired because there are a lot more locations to choose from and if you meet the need you shouldn't have any problems getting a location you choose from their site. These prime locations do not last though as this is when many new hires try to get in. As the time goes on and they fill jobs the ones that are left are in undesirable locations. Currently there are on positions in China and Kazakhstan. While in Jan. when the new openings were posted there were positions open in places like Italy. They only lasted for about 2 days though before they were filled. November is still quite early in the school year when internal transfers take place, so prime locations that were open after that were generally due to teachers giving notice of intention to leave after the November deadline. Being internal transfer have already taken place they are not available to existing teachers. Hope this makes sense.

It depends largely on which country. Kazakhstan, Vietnam and China are three countries that I have entered in with a tourist or business visa and then had a work visa issued while there. With Kazakhstan and China I had to leave and go to their embassy in another country. In Vietnam it was issued without ever having to leave. In all three of these countries rules change frequently so it might not be the same anymore. In other countries I have no direct experience so will leave it to someone that has.

Avoid Sally like the plague. The fellow from Australia, Nick Kendall is pretty good. I ask him questions when I have some even though he is not my rep and he still always responds. Sally never responds unless you call her, and then she promises to but never does.

I agree with shadowjack. I would find it quite unusual to receive a stipend and then be told where I have to use it. I am curious, does the stipend cover the rent or will you have to add to it? If it covers the rent I would be fine with it as it would be the same as having your housing paid in full but having to live there. However, if it doesn't cover it and you still have to live there I would be really skeptical as a stipend is generally paid so the teacher has some choice in where and the quality of his/her accommodation.

I believe their policy is that it's too late now, as I personally know a teacher who has been informed that way. However, I have always found QSI to be reasonable and family friendly so if you have a legitimate reason as you stated I wouldn't hesitate to ask. Either ask your director or Matt Lake, which I think is responsible. I think they mostly prefer their staff to go through their directors though.

Good Luck

I attended the Melbourne fair and wore a full suit and tie upon the advice of the Search rep. That said, I am guessing less than 25% of the male candidates did this. All wore suit pants and dress shirts though. I came back feeling it wasn't a big deal as long as you look presentable and of course well groomed.

If you are simply looking for the easiest way to become ceritified try Washington DC. If you google Washington DC principal certification it will come up. On option 2 you need to pass a SLLA Praxis exam, have a Master's in an education related field and 2 years of teaching experience, plus the regular FBI background check etc. Overseas experience counts so you never have to have taught in the US.

Good Luck

PsyGuy says
"Your visa and work permit belongs to the school, BUT to cancel it they need you to give them your passport otherwise its just yours. PSB will not cancel a work permit/experts license without the passport, and doing so administratively will cost the school money that they arent going to get back, and takes a significant amount of time. Unfortunately your experts license is probably with the school and of course they wont give it to you, but its not a big deal."



If you do a runner there is nothing the school can do except cancel your work visa. DO NOT take PsyGuy's advice that they cannot cancel your work visa without your passport because they can. It happened to my colleague as he went to a neighboring school and acted like he did a runner thinking that way the school wouldn't bother cancelling his visa. (He did this on the advice of the other school.) When the new school went to try and get another work visa he discovered his previous visa had been cancelled an he ended up having to leave the country and pay a fine, plus he was in jail for two days. He said all in all jail wasn't what the locals would be put in and he was treated well but is still probably not a place where you would want to stay for any length of time. All this however did not keep him from returning to China as he was back after 2 months and kept on working for the other school he had left to go to.

If you look at posts you will see PsyGuy thinks he knows everything and always needs the last word. While he has some good insights and the like on certain things, however he doesn't hesitate to give incorrect information for the sake of having himself seen as knowledgeable.

I don't know much about them but they had the longest line during the sign up session at the Melbourne Fair.

You will want to be careful when selecting a school as the UAE is one of a few countries where a considerable amount of schools will only cover partial tuition for kids. I am sure there are some there that cover a 100% but it is definitely not a given as is usually the case in other places. I also know that in certain ME countries visas are problematic (not sure about UAE) if the lady of the household is the one that is sponsoring her spouse. Lastly, ADEC (if this is a place your wife is considering) hires a lot of western teachers and they do not offer tuition for dependents and dependents cannot be placed in ADEC schools either.

While I find the data base useful for info on schools, salaries, benefits and the like, that aside I tend to agree with twimih. I have also noticed that a lot of schools on search are now using Schrole, with some of them only accepting applications through this site. Schrole looks like it's the way many of the schools are and will be going in the future. If I were not attending a fair I think I would simply sign up with Schrole. I almost feel as if fairs will soon become a thing of the past.

QSI hires mostly US teachers. The workload is reasonable and they have many locations, some good locations and some not so good.

There are 74 positions in all, covering all of their schools. There are 19 in Shenzhen, which is the school that roostersauce was referring to. My point is that 19 positions in such a large school as Shenzhen (over 1300 currently enrolled) is not a large turnover of staff.

For an international school with over 1300 students 19 new teachers wouldn't exactly constitute a lot of turnover. Especially considering QSI's max class sizes are usually 15.

I can't answer all of your questions, but I can answer the one concerning the students. They would not be Chinese as locals are not allowed to enroll in international schools in China. They may be Taiwanese or from a lot of other countries surrounding China, but not from the mainland.

Hope this helps.