Having recently returned home from a teaching job in Saudi Arabia, I would like here to lay down some information and advice for anybody thinking of going there. The great allure of the country is money - but beware. You might be, as my group was, shortchanged in any one of the following ways.
I was wooed to an interview in London for a teaching job in Saudi - with the promise that all expenses would be paid. None was - so I was down the price of return flights, two nights in a hotel and various associated costs. In the end I got only the air fare, despite an `all-the-way-home' clause in the contract.
We were to be paid in Saudi riyals, salaries being worked out at a rate of 5.7 riyals to £1 sterling. The lowest that sterling went during our stay was to a rate of 6.11 riyals, meaning a loss of at least £650 per £10,000. Apparently the 5.7 rate is the lowest sterling has been in the past five years.
On leaving we were given two days' notice, sent home 10 days early, but without payment for those last 10 days of our contract. This was another significant loss and a clear breach of Saudi labour law which we couldn't fight as it would have taken too long in court.
Unlike employers in most countries, your Saudi employer holds your passport for the duration of your stay. Although generally not a problem, it's a tremendous power which can be exploited. For instance, one teacher in our group wanted to go home for an emergency - his wife needed urgent surgery. Rather than being let go immediately, he was threatened and bullied into staying and teaching for another week and had a month's salary withheld for the privilege of eventually leaving.
Saudi Arabia is a hard country in which to live. First, you really have to go there to see how Third World workers are treated as third-class citizens. Second, being the home of Islamic fundamentalism, this is a very repressive society where most things are either censored or banned - ranging from the practice of other religions to taking alcohol. Third, it's an autocracy run by privilege, patronage, propaganda and police.
The combination of religious fanacticism and autocracy leads to a particularly sterile, stagnant education system and, therefore, poor job satisfaction for teachers. I was teaching at a third-level institution where you couldn't talk about politics, sex, religion or women and where you couldn't play music. Textbooks and courses were the dreary obligations of disgruntled expatriates. The discipline was upside-down. Their system of wasta or patronage ensures that there is usually someone's son in your class. The result is that the students can often have more power than the teacher.
On the bright side however, it's possible to cushion yourself from all this. You can join in the ex-pat social scene and earn good money there for a time.
Teaching salaries range from about £22,000 to £32,000 a year and are tax free. You can expect about three months holiday a year.
If you're thinking of going to Saudi Arabia, the best advice would be:
Get everything in writing.
Work for a European or American company if possible.
Don't work for small Saudi subcontractors.
For young teachers - Irish principals don't see teaching there as valuable experience.
John Murphy is a second-level teacher
