Khazakstan: Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools

[higgsboson]

Thanks Morgan and Blueseal. It was a real help. It sounds sketchy at NIS and I think I'll work through my visa issue with China

[Ex-Patriot2000]

So....

Any additional thoughts on NIS? My experience in the Middle East has been...interesting. Management is management. Often demanding and unrealistic. Just need to go with things and try to block it out as much as possible. Seems to be the most difficult part. My general rule: nice kids, clean building, good salary, and I can be happy. From what I can tell, NIS offers this.

The thoughts about reimbursement, etc are worrisome, but seems to be just as many people saying they never had problems with that. I'm curious if anybody else out there has any thoughts to break the "tie."

[skonamaj1]

I have 10 years international teaching experience, and this was the worst I have ever been treated. You have to fight for everything you get or they will not give it to you. 1st apartments are sub-par at best, and you don't get a choice they put you in an apartment, and all of these apartments are connected to someone in the school. So the school is making a little cash on the side charging the program $1,200 per month for apartments that at best cost around $400 per month according to a local Realtor. Our flights were a major struggle a lot of us were promised that our spouses or children would have their flights paid for, and this was an outright lie. Once we were in country the decided they simply would not pay, and said this was never in the contract. However, for some people they did pay for their children and wives. This was the first lie they told me. The second lie they told me was that we would be given a settling in allowance of $2,000 within 10 days of coming into the country. This is also a lie because you can not get any money from the school until you have a Kazakhstan bank account which takes 6 weeks to set up. After your bank account is set up then you will get $1,000 which is taxed, and then they give you the other $1,000 after you pass probation which is 3 months later, and then they tax that as well. According to our contracts we were promised 2 round trip tickets during the year, and I thought this is fantastic, but it turned into a real nightmare. Before Christmas the principal and vice principal set us down at a meeting and said you can go anywhere you want for your holiday, and just provide us with the flight details and ticket stubs and we will pay. So many teachers decided to go on holiday. I decided to visit my wife's family, and the don't live in the same country I was born in not to give anyway to much personal information. So when we came back I turned in my ticket information, and after a few weeks got the money for the flight. Then suddenly their was a document going around the office where we had to sign what our country of origin was. I thought right away this sounds fishy, and sure enough if you didn't go to your country of origin on holiday they were asking you to return the money to them. One teacher had to give back $4,000, the IT teacher had to give back $3,000, 4 other teachers were simply not paid at all. They asked me to return the money as well and eventually they backed down after I brought in documents proving I had a house in my wife's country. That money those people had to return had to be given back to the accountant in "Cash," and I am sure it was going directly into her pocket. So for the flight this summer they told us again it's ok go anywhere you want, but nobody was stupid enough to believe them this time. The administration both international and local are bad in the extreme. Our team leader a Greek-South African woman made life a living hell for everyone in my school. She and her husband would actually yell at people in the staff room, make inappropriate comments, and consistently talk about how everyone in the staffroom were liars, cheats, and bad people, and how she was consistently being attack and then break down in tears. Then she would flip around and be super nice saying we are all like family here and we are her children she must watch over. Psycho. The local admin was worse they would cheat you at every turn. I have several examples but I think I have said enough. On the bright side or maybe not so dark side. I liked my Kazakh co-teacher. I liked my students. Also when they did pay us the money was nice as you net $4,500 per month after taxes, and you can't spend that amount of money in Kazakhstan even if you try hard and go out to dinner every night. I would spend about $1,200 per month, and the rest was gravy. I paid off all of my credit cards back home, and still saved a nice chunk of change, but be prepared for battle when you sign up for this post, because your going to have to fight for everything you get. In fairness though I would do it again. Just go in with the mindset that they don't want you their and your just a hassle they have to put up with, and if you know your place and don't cause trouble you will be fine. Just a heads up we were told before we left that the contracts for next year will be 10 months only because the school wants to get out of paying us for the summer. So according to the local VP at our school any contract you sign with the parent NIS company will not count, and that when you arrive at your school they will make you sign a contract with the school that is 10 months only, and be aware that the Russian version of the contract could be different from the English version of the contract, and always the Russian version of the contract prevails.

[skonamaj1]

Just one more thing and I am not trying to beat a dead horse here but think about this. We started the year in my NIS school with 26 international teachers during the course of the year 5 of those teachers left with no warning just ran away in the middle of the night. Of those 26 international teacher 4 are returning for a second year. 4 ..... think about that

[expattina]

I had a contract with the NIS for 2013-2014. The position seemed too good to be true though. I was supposed to arrive next week for the teacher induction in Astana. My recruiter assured me I would arrive on time.

The HR kept giving me excuses on why they never submitted my papers for my work visa. The vice principal of my NIS school never responds to my emails though she keeps asking me when I will arrive into Astana.

My friends there told me most of the teachers did not renew their contracts. I am thinking about telling my recruiter that I will not come now. I may get my invitation letter next week but that means I cannot come to Kazakhstan until early September.

This is so frustrating! If I get an offer with another school, I will probably take it and not go to Kazakhstan.

Any other new teachers having similar problems?

Tina

[skonamaj1]

That is the way they operate. They screwed up my visa last year and I had to come late as well.