They are bleeding staff members. Several quit in the middle of this year. Others were fired. I don't know the particulars, but I've heard that a new company came in and took them over and that's when the issues started.

I started off my international career about 8 years ago as an intern, straight out of college with my BS in Elementary Ed and a teaching cert but no experience (other than student teaching). I went to the Cambridge Fair my senior year of college and interviewed for several internship positions. I ended up taking one in western Europe.

Based on my internship year in Europe, and what I learned from my internship interviews, schools use their interns in a few different ways. At the school I was at, interns were used as TAs. I spent all year with a primary-grade class as the assistant. It was actually great, because it was a grade I wanted to teach once I had my own class, and I got to work alongside an experienced teacher and see how she did things. Like an extra student teaching, but more fun because I was in Europe! Yes, we got paid. Less than the regular teachers, but our housing was also covered by the school--which it was not for the regular teachers. Interns had to share housing.

Some of the other schools I interviewed with used their interns as office personnel--copying, answering phones, talking to prospective parents, etc. Another school I interviewed with specifically uses interns as internal substitutes. I always thought that would've been a good experience too, because I would've been able to work with a variety of grade levels. At none of these schools did the intern pay equal the teacher pay. But again, sometimes you get a perk like housing that the teachers don't get.

The DSIB process is fairly similar to Ofsted. The one big difference is that, apparently, schools rated highly in Britain don't have to undergo the inspection process again for a few years. However, in Dubai every single school gets visited and inspected every single year.

I don't think that a score of 'Outstanding' is going to raise a school's profile outside of Dubai or the UAE. Look at ASD's score of only 'Good'. ASD is arguably the best school in Dubai, but the sole reason they are rated only 'Good' is because they don't meet the Ministry of Ed's requirements for teaching Islamic and Arabic. For practically every other feature they are rated 'Outstanding'. So I won't say the rating is completely on the money.

I still think the DSIB inspection rating can give a prospective teacher some helpful info. If a school cannot at least pull out a 'Good' rating, then it's not a place I would ever consider as a job. The schools get advanced warning about when the inspectors will come, and they know what the rubric is for evaluation. Yes, both teaching and learning are evaluated. Well, DSIB really stresses that they're focusing on students' learning, but of course they're also looking at teaching. So if a school can't even eke out an acceptable with advanced warning, they're rubbish.

I would say from personal experience (or the experience of my friends) that I would rank the GCC countries:
1. UAE, but only Abu Dhabi (ACS) and Dubai (ASD)
2. Doha, Qatar: ASD, though I know a couple of people at one of the Qatar Foundation schools and they like it.
3. Oman/Saudi Arabia/Bahrain/Kuwait: I can't remember the names of the schools that my friends worked at, but none of them had overwhelmingly positive things to say.
I would also throw ACS in Amman, Jordan somewhere up on this list closer to the top.

Your personal goals and expectations might change the list a bit. If you're a married couple focusing on saving a ton of money, then Saudi might move up the list for you.

I see a red flag, but not for the same reason you do. From all the contact you've had with the school and the information they've given you about your teaching next year, it sounds to me like they legitimately plan to bring you over. However, it also sounds like their HR department is disorganized and/or doesn't know how to do the job. That's the red flag I see. Even my current school, which isn't the greatest about organization and communication, had my contract sent to me before April.

I am also moving to China this year. I was hired at the Cambridge Fair. The recruiters continued on to the SF fair afterwards while I came back to my current location. Then, about a week after they returned to China from SF, they sent me my contract. HR is currently in the process of getting together my Foreign Expert Permit and letter of invitation so I can go to my Chinese consulate and get the Z-visa in a couple of months. But who knows? Maybe your school is planning to bring you over on a tourist visa and then get your work permit, so they don't feel the need to start the process so early.

It can be frustrating when recruiters don't get back to you. I wouldn't say it's a problem that is endemic only to IT. I have friends back home in other fields who have the same problem when job hunting. They get one or two interviews and then...nothing.

Have you been contacting these recruiters after interviews? I always put a thank you note in their box after the interview. And, if necessary, another email the next day.

I agree with Shadowjack that either city could be a good location, so long as you're at a decent school. Remember that 99% of all int'l schools in both cities will be for-profit.

I personally would go with Dubai only because of the housing situation. Dubai is bigger and there's lots of on-going construction, so housing is plentiful. From what I've heard/read, many teachers in Abu Dhabi are expected to share housing or forced into it because their housing allowance doesn't cover an apartment. Now if I were hired by an Abu Dhabi school that made it possible for me to live on my own, I could see myself living there.

The schools I'm familiar with make teachers pay. But I was there during that awkward transition time where the government kept saying, "The deadline for ID cards is X date." And then when X date came, the government would push back the deadline by 6 months. This happened about 3 or 4 times, so people got really sick of playing that game. And those who got their cards right away were not happy they had because they spent all this money and never once needed to use the card. There are still places that require your passport and won't accept the national card. Maybe as time moves forward and the card actually becomes a necessity, not just a fee the government asks of people, schools will pay for it as part of the visa process.

Sorry teachermama, that's the only one I came across. There are volunteer organizations like World Teach if you want to work in underserved countries. I had a friend who did that her first year out of college. It's not the kind of program that generally attracts established teachers because there's, well, no real salary.

The Jay Pritzker Academy in Cambodia might interest you. I have no personal experience with the school, just what I researched online when I was job hunting earlier this year. It's a school for rural, poor Cambodian children established by an American philanthropist. And it's very much a community center in the sense that the students are provided with uniforms, breakfast, etc.

I can't speak to the salary or housing benefits. I will say that universally, every teacher I know who worked for ADEC had to deal with pretty terrible student behavior. Some of the teachers were able to handle the little darlings and roll with it, and other teachers were really beaten down by it. You know yourself well enough as a teacher, I'm sure, to know what your personal reaction would be.

On the flip side, most people love, love, love Abu Dhabi as a town. All the teachers I know enjoyed living there.

In my opinion/experience:

Non-profit=all monies go back into the school to pay for things like salaries, professional development, building/grounds maintenance, facilities, new technology, etc.

For-profit=money has to go back into the school for all of the same things as above PLUS money also needs to go back to the share holders.

There are some well-run, professional for-profit schools. But in many, many cases the things that a school needs to run successfully are secondary to the share holders' pockets. The bottom line is money, and that means that schools will do certain things to make money (like accepting children they shouldn't and bowing to ridiculous parent demands in order to keep paying families at the school).

This school cold-contacted me before the Cambridge Fair, and sent some information about the school in the email. Apparently the student body is only about a quarter Saudi. It's also very small and very new. And there's not much to do in the city. As a personal choice, I would never work for GEMS because it's a for-profit company. As far as for-profits go, it is one of the better organizations. But it's a line I choose not to cross (again).

Well, pretty much every school in Dubai is a "harcore" for-profit school.

The owners of CAS own a couple of other fairly successful schools, so they're not total noobs to the business.

However, as a new school trying to build its population, CAS is taking a lot of students who've either a)completely failed out of other schools or b) struggled in other schools. This doesn't mean they'd be horrible students, it just means they'd be low.

I can't speak about the package or the work environment.