Having taught internationally for a while I often find myself wondering about whether I should buy some sort of condo or a house to use in vacations and/or retire to at some point. I would love to buy a place to use right now as a vacation home while renting it through a real state company or similar whenever I'm not using it, and maybe eventually using it as a retirement home.

I was wondering if anyone here at ISR has done something similar, and if so, where, how much you paid, process, etc...

Thailand comes to mind, but it is my understanding that foreigners cannot own anything other than condos, and that is only of over 50% of the condos in the building are Thai-owned.

I don't know about how feasible/hard/expensive(or not) it would be to consider places such as: Malaysia, Philippines, Mexico, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, etc?

Has anyone done this? Any experiences to share about buying real state in a country different than that you are residing in?

Just venting...

Don't you hate it when schools just stop writing back out of the blue? I've had one school approach me (without me applying to it). We exchanged a few emails, then they disappeared... I wrote a followup email a week later asking if anything had changed and just didn't receive a reply.

I then had almost exactly the same story with a different school. The head wrote back after I applied stating a strong interest, and letting me know they wanted to interview me one week later since it was a busy time; I'm still waiting... I emailed asking if anything had changed and they did not bother replying...

Maybe they no longer have the vacancy. Maybe they decided to hire someone else. Who knows? But why can't they show basic manners and either let the candidate know, or at least reply when a candidate (whom they had contacted and expressed interest in) inquires about it... I mean, all it takes is one click (Reply) and then write a three-sentence email saying "Sorry, thank you for your time"...

Is this common? Has this happened to anyone other than me? Should I go paranoid and think something weird is going on?

I see your point shadowjack. However I was not suggesting going through whatever hiring process these schools have through any medium other than the fair itself. Nevertheless, I do understand your point. I guess I'll have to either sign up or go through each school's website and see if they did include their vacancies there. I do have access to TIE (not Search) but I've only seen a couple of the schools listed in this fair posting their vacancies on TIE...

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Yup, not common at all...

It would be interesting, that is for sure. I'm under the impression each year there are more teachers out there from minority ethnic groups...

To further explain what overseasvet12 said.

In many, many countries, if you are not married, your partner cannot be considered as a dependent as he/she is not related to you (legally).

Due to this, claiming a boyfriend/girlfriend as a dependent will not fly with many, many schools as they will be unable to help your partner obtain a residency/work permit/whatever...

Moreover, for the same reason, many schools will not extend any benefits for boyfriends/girlfriends as, once again, why should they? It's not like it's your spouse...

I don't know what other people in the forum think (and I'd love to hear some opinions), but in my experience:
Either get married right now and let know any schools you apply that you are married, or don't get married but don't expect any schools to extend benefits to your partner and don't be surprised if your partner can only live with you for certain periods of time with a tourist visa...

I'm not an admin, but I do know a couple of them who simply laugh when they receive applications from non-married couples when only one of them is applying for a job...

Yeah, I'm taking a look at it myself.
Seems like they have a similar idea to ISR but decided to spend a bit more in having a more "professional" web design, layout, etc...

It definitely also looks like they have access to Search and ISR and just copied and pasted information to their own system...

Functions like comparing school salaries seem like good ideas though!

Just found this online. Does anyone have any experience about these "services"? Is it useful at all?

http://www.internationalschoolcommunity.com/home2.php

I am genuinely curious Psyguy, does your personality online differ from your personality offline?

You seem so eager to gain attention by being (let's be diplomatic) confident and antagonistic that I do wonder what you are like offline :-)

And please do know I am not being sarcastic; I am genuinely intrigued!

I don't think "Being an IB school" necessarily says anything about a school. Sure, it "can" say something, but it doesn't "necessarily" have to; at least not in practical terms in the real world.

Schools choose to be IB for a variety of reasons, including the fact that having the IB logo in the school's website and advertisements "looks good". Sure, some decide to "be" IB, but some just want to use it as a selling point.

What does the IB care about? The IB cares about the Standards and Practices. That's the list of criteria they check in schools, and that's it. If a school "is" IB, it merely means they went through the authorization process, and were successful in implementing the required standards and practices; at least on paper. That's it. Whether the IB is "supposed" to mean something else, that's another matter entirely.

Would they care about this? Probably not; not in the sense at least of considering revoking authorization to this school. It's not their problem (again, I'm not saying how it should be but simply how it actually is). It's simply none of their business in the sense that their business is providing a framework schools have to follow to "be" IB, and then check on this via paperwork and site visits, and offering training (all of which generate significant revenue). That's it, plain and simple. And, let's not forget it is a business; as someone else already posted: does anyone know any school whatsoever that has been revoked its IB status? Different question now: how many schools do you know that are authorized IB schools and are really far away from a proper implementation of whatever program they have?

I am happy to see this teacher being released. I am shocked about what happened to him. But I can't say I am totally surprised. In the international world, the fact is that wherever you go you are not a local, you are not playing by your rules, and this leads to a great potential for these kind of things. Maybe not going to jail, but I am sure we can all provide examples of teachers who have been unfairly treated, or sacked from schools without having been given many options...

PsyGuy, of course I do hate to disagree with you! Everyone knows that disagreeing with you will end up in an immediate reply from you saying you are right and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong :-)

BTW, I still think you are wrong :-)

But, sometimes not arguing does not mean you have nothing to say, but simply that some people are not worth arguing with.

For some Muslim countries it might make a difference if your spouse is Male as they will not allow a male to be the legal dependent of a female...

Other countries don't have this restriction. As to stating upfront: just keep in mind some schools will simply not consider any teachers with non teaching spouses by policy (they won't care about why you don't mind not having benefits for your spouse).

Like many things in the IS world, there's no "generic" answer here. Some schools will mind, some will not, some will consider it, some will not, in some countries it might be an issue, in some countries it might not...

Reputable school in Bogota (capital). Mostly high profile Colombian students. One of the most "academic" schools in Colombia, and with great facilities. Although the school is very expensive and clearly makes lots of money it is non profit (no owner as such). Has a very good reputation in Colombia. The package is not as good as the Anglo Colombiano or The English School.

Hope this helps.

Hi Psyguy,

Hate to disagree with you Psyguy:

Workshop Leader, School visitor and School consultant: they are 3 different roles, but they all receive the same "training" and are part of the same datase which is the IB Educators Network.

As a workshop leader I was trained also to serve as part of a visiting team and also as a school consultant; I have been asked to do school visits and consulting but have not done so simply because of time constraints. So if you are one of them, you are all of them; or at least you can participate in any of those roles... So Workshop Leaders are in the same bag as school visitors and school consultants. It's the same training! It's called the IB Academy if you want to check it out.

Moderators and examiners, that's a different issue; that one I agree with you. They report directly to Cardiff, not to the IB region...