Also considering QSI (teaching couple). I'd be grateful for any info. We currently live an hour outside Cairo and quite isolated from the other teachers in the school. We have a six year old and a four month old and we are the only family. Really looking for schools with other families.

We lived in southern China many years ago (1998), before we had kids.

holmes5668@hotmail.com

My school owns me from 7:30 to 3:30. We have two other events we have to attend, which are grade 12 graduation in June and a Spring fair on a Saturday afternoon in April. We barely have any meetings at all. We have the option of staying until 4:30 (we are bussed in), but most teachers don't stay.

Polytechs? I think you mean polys (if you want to abbreviate). which haven't existed for nearly 20 years. While in some circumstances an employer might differentiate between applicants coming from different universities, in general they don't.

I got my first degree from a UK ex-polytechnic and had no trouble having it accepted as equivalent in Canada (at what might be considered Canada's answer to Oxford and Cambridge).

In answer to the Open University question, yes, it is well known and highly regarded.

My wife and I work at a school in Africa that doesn't pay for dependents. On the surface this doesn't sound like a great deal (we have two kids). However, we had no full time experience before coming out, so schools that offered flights and extras to dependents wouldn't look at us.

Our salaries, however, are very good and more than compensate for the lack of flights. The fact that packages weren't actually offered to dependents worked in our favor, as it meant dependents weren't a consideration in the hiring process.

Mind you, with a timeline of 3-5 years, if you are serious about moving and staying overseas, I would get your husband certified, so you make up a teaching couple. I suspect that international school salary would be somewhere between 60 and 100% higher than Aeon, plus you would probably get an accomodation allowance (Aeon pay about 260,000 a month, I think).

I worked for Nova for a year. Terrible place.

[quote="mysharona"]and that pretty much sums up the issue that has consumed the forum for the past two weeks.[/quote]
Yep. People are looking for first hand accounts, not second hand hearsay.

There was a thread on here a while back where a bunch of teachers wanted to split the forum into about half a dozen new ones. I thought is was ridiculous at the current set up runs like treacle. I'm all for one forum. Get rid of the other one.

[quote="PsyGuy"]If thats per month thats an AMAZING salary, id even apply for that kind of money. If its per year in Cairo, its very very low. You wouldnt be able to do anything on that kind of money. With a housing package you would even have a hard time getting by. Youd have to live like a homebody[/quote]

You would definitely not have a hard time living on that. It's not a stunning salary, but it definitely isn't 'very, very low' (low starts around UKP12,000 from what I can figure out - even on that you could have a good life, but not much scope for savings). Life would be good there on 18,500 pounds and there would be plenty of opportunity for savings.

When I graduated in British Columbia in 2009 there were advertisements up in the education department recruiting new Canadian graduates for positions in Bhutan. They were also looking for retired Canadian teachers. From memory, I think it was a one year contract. The money was awful, but what a wonderful experience is would be!!!!! I made a note of it for retirement (in 20 years time).

I got a job in elementary with no experience other than ESL (four years in Asia) and two years subbing.

I don't know if my school would be counted as 3rd or 2nd tier, but it functions as a school in my home country would, other than there is minimal learning support, which they could really do with. Our salary is very good, and it's up there with some considered 2nd and 1st tier schools.

I think one of the things that helped us was that we are teaching couple (both elementary) in our late 30s / early 40s and we had both had successful careers in other fields. We had had lots of life experience, including living overseas

Life experience, ESL experience and time overseas definitely helped, but yes, a first 1st school wouldn't have looked at us.

I also think PsyGuy said it perfectly.

I'm in a BC overseas school. I wouldn't be allowed to work here if I didn't maintain my BC certification.

Why don't you call the BCCT (or the BC Teachers' Council as I think it will be called)?

http://www.bcteacherregulation.ca/Teach ... chers.aspx

With the lack of razors, mouthwash and deodorant you probably didn't need the condoms anyway :-)

Most places don't have driers, but things dry in 30 minutes between March and November.

Cairo is very dry, so you don't sweat much even when it's reaching the 40, meaning weaker deodorant (if it is weaker) isn't much of an issue.

Optical drives and contacts have not been an issue for us.

Razors of all sorts and mouthwash are readily available, as are condoms (I'm pretty sure I've seen them in pharmacies on open display).

We have had no problem transfering money to Canada and the UK from Egypt, however, if you have a PayPal account call them before you leave and tell them where you are moving to. We didn't and they suspended our accounts when we tried to use them in Egypt. So far they have not reopened them.

Maadi is the place most westerners live. It's ok, but hardly the international community that it's built up to be. If you drink you are pretty much restricted to only a few venues. The ACE Club is the most popular. Beers are 10 LE (about US$1.60) and there appears to be a dating scene, although being married, I'm hardly in a position to comment. The BCA is a more sedate, larger and more relaxed.

Large cans of beer from Drinkies liquor store cost 6.5 LE (US$1) a can. Wine starts at US$7 a bottle. They deliver.

Most things you need on a day to day basis are quite cheap. Anything imported is expensive, but usually there is a reasonable local equivalent for a fifth of the price.

Whether Maadi is the place to live depends on where your school is located. Is it going to take over an hour on a bus to get there every day? Where do all the other teachers in your school live?

[quote="lightstays"]You will be overwhelmingly better off paying for extra baggage on your outbound flight. Sea/land shipping has become a tremendous racket with more hidden fees that a Verizon cell phone contract.[/quote]

That depends very much who you ship with and how you ship it. I boxed my stuff myself, took it down to the shippers yard (a reputable international company), put it on two pallets and wrapped and labelled it myself. I then picked it up from the reciever at the other end. No extra or hidden costs, I knew exactly what I was paying for.

If you phone someone in the Yellow Pages who offer to come to your house and give you quote you are going to get ripped off. Last time I shipped I got a quote from one of those companies that comes round and packs for you. The quote was US$4,500. I did it myself for under US$1,000

However, I would still go with maximizing your luggage allowance first, then ship second ............................if you have to.