The International Schools Review Forum

Amman seems to have quite a few international schools. Can anyone share their experiences of teaching/living there? (good schools, social life for a single person, general cost of living, etc.) I can't seem to find much recent info other than it sounds like a pretty expensive city to live in.

Costs in Amman are like anywhere else...if you want to live the expat life with all of the goods from home, it's very pricey. If you shop at local markets, eat locally and avoid the fancy restaurants, you can get by pretty cheaply. Buying a car is almost out of reach for expats - the cars have to be fairly new and the import tax is something like 100%. Cabs are abundant and super cheap and you can get almost anywhere in the city for a couple of bucks.

It's a quiet city. If you're into nightclubs there is a big selection. You'll want to avoid places where you'd run into your secondary students. To be content, you just have to find your niche. Not much in the way of cultural events and it can be hard to find out what's going on but many singles have been very happy.

The climate is pretty much ideal and if you're a history buff, you'll never run out of places to explore.

Thanks very much for that information. Can either of you share which schools have good reputations? Any knowledge of Amman Bacc School?

The best school in which to work in Amman is ACS - not to be confused with Modern American School. The latter is a for profit school; a person who worked there told me there was at least one fight a day in the secondary.

ABS (Amman Bacc School) is an IB school with almost 100% rich locals. The facilties are great and they've been working on improving the expat teacher package. The expats are much fewer than locals.

I don't know anything about working conditions - I just know I'd steer clear of that type of population because my own experience with a rich, local population was not good. To each his own.