Welcome to teaching in NIS Kazakhstan !!!
Based upon my personal experiences at NIS Shymkent, Biology and Chemistry, with the Principal/Director being Mr Balkan Kassimov, Vice Principal Dinara Akhmetova and the International Vice-Principal being Richard Evans and then Jennifer MacKenzie (married named Wemyss), the SUBSTANTIAL good points are as follows :
1. Your monthly pay will be between $ 4,000 and $ 5,000 per month, depending on your location in Kazakhstan. This is many times more than the Principal/Director of the school and THIRTEEN times more than your Kazakh classroom teacher colleagues.
2. You will have an apartment with all bills paid, including heating, electricity, WIFI and satellite TV.
3. I lived and worked in the southern city of Shymkent where living is very good and very cheap. I saved 95 % of my salary. It is much more expensive to live in the capital city Astana.
4. You will teach the best pupils BY FAR you will ever meet in your professional career, ANYWHERE in the World.
5. The Kazakh teaching colleagues you work with will be the most dedicated, hard working and professionally qualified people you will meet. They are treated ABYSMALLY by management.
6. If you make a genuine effort to embrace Kazakh culture, customs and people, you will be welcomed with open arms, and you will make friends for life.
7. Your contract states that your flights to and from Kazakhstan will be re-imbursed....they are...eventually and USUALLY. BUT not always. Management will make you jump through many hoops to get YOUR money back. Why ? Because they can.
The MASSIVE bad points are :
1. The Kazakh school management REPEATEDLY publicly harangued International Teachers, in full staff meetings, about the 'huge' wages paid, asking why, and what value we were to the school. The school Principal/Director, Balkan Kassimov, did this repeatedly, in any language but English. What a guy ! It was a very, very poor reflection upon the people of Kazakhstan.
2. To be re-imbursed flight monies you will often treated like a thief and liar. When you leave, they will 'lose' your reimbursement paperwork, after you return to your home country. This happened to all four International teachers when we left this NIS Shymkent school in June 2017. The International Vice-Principal, Jennifer Mackenzie (now Wemyss), and Vice Principal Dinara Akhmetova were responsible for this paperwork, and all jointly signed a letter demanding replacement paperwork that THEY lost ! Because they could !
3. The NIS management/administration (Director/Principal Balkan Kassimov and Vice Principal Dinara Akhmetova especially) is the most power crazy, crack-pot, corrosive, vindictive, inept and counter-productive you will meet in any educational establishment anywhere. Their style is utterly immersed in the repressive past, with a 'modus operandi' which stymies and crushes individual talent, creativity and enthusiasm in the brilliantly professional Kazakh teachers.
4. You will earn every cent of your £5,000 dollars per month, teaching pupils from 8.00 am until 5.00 pm (or later) five days per week. There will be pressure put upon you to come in to teach at weekends, outside contractual hours, and without pay.
13. There is an inherent culture of tolerated exam cheating alien to teachers from Western educational systems.
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| Myself at the NIS Biology and Chemistry, Shymkent, South Kazakhstan |
Based upon my personal experiences at NIS Shymkent, Biology and Chemistry, with the Principal/Director being Mr Balkan Kassimov, Vice Principal Dinara Akhmetova and the International Vice-Principal being Richard Evans and then Jennifer MacKenzie (married named Wemyss), the SUBSTANTIAL good points are as follows :
1. Your monthly pay will be between $ 4,000 and $ 5,000 per month, depending on your location in Kazakhstan. This is many times more than the Principal/Director of the school and THIRTEEN times more than your Kazakh classroom teacher colleagues.
2. You will have an apartment with all bills paid, including heating, electricity, WIFI and satellite TV.
3. I lived and worked in the southern city of Shymkent where living is very good and very cheap. I saved 95 % of my salary. It is much more expensive to live in the capital city Astana.
4. You will teach the best pupils BY FAR you will ever meet in your professional career, ANYWHERE in the World.
5. The Kazakh teaching colleagues you work with will be the most dedicated, hard working and professionally qualified people you will meet. They are treated ABYSMALLY by management.
6. If you make a genuine effort to embrace Kazakh culture, customs and people, you will be welcomed with open arms, and you will make friends for life.
7. Your contract states that your flights to and from Kazakhstan will be re-imbursed....they are...eventually and USUALLY. BUT not always. Management will make you jump through many hoops to get YOUR money back. Why ? Because they can.
The MASSIVE bad points are :
1. The Kazakh school management REPEATEDLY publicly harangued International Teachers, in full staff meetings, about the 'huge' wages paid, asking why, and what value we were to the school. The school Principal/Director, Balkan Kassimov, did this repeatedly, in any language but English. What a guy ! It was a very, very poor reflection upon the people of Kazakhstan.
Balkan Kassimov- Director/Principal (Current)
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Dinara Akhmetova- Vice Principal (Current)
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3. The NIS management/administration (Director/Principal Balkan Kassimov and Vice Principal Dinara Akhmetova especially) is the most power crazy, crack-pot, corrosive, vindictive, inept and counter-productive you will meet in any educational establishment anywhere. Their style is utterly immersed in the repressive past, with a 'modus operandi' which stymies and crushes individual talent, creativity and enthusiasm in the brilliantly professional Kazakh teachers.
4. You will earn every cent of your £5,000 dollars per month, teaching pupils from 8.00 am until 5.00 pm (or later) five days per week. There will be pressure put upon you to come in to teach at weekends, outside contractual hours, and without pay.
5. The best NIS assets - the wonderfully talented and qualified Kazakh teachers - are queuing up to leave. They are driven to the exit door by a myopic, mean-spirited and manic management - a management who are simply much too inexperienced, and utterly devoid of the basic management skills needed in a cohesive, collegiate, educational establishment.
6. You will receive minimal backup from your International Vice Principal. You are mostly on your own. They will hang you out to dry, when it suits them.
7. Get used to crackpot change, almost every day. You will NOT have a teaching timetable at the beginning of the term. It often changes daily, when you do get it. We had a timetable that changed THREE times in one day, with dinner break down to 15 minutes. This was withdrawn after it was pointed out that this was illegal under Kazakhstan's very own Labour Laws. Laurel and Hardy would have thrived here.
8. Trade Unions are illegal in these schools. Kazakh colleagues who complain to management simply disappear from the workplace - sacked. Be warned.
9. Management in the school works on fear and an informal spy network. Those who inform, thrive.
10. People are simply handed jobs with massive responsibility. Your Kazakh colleague may disappear out of your department.....and will appear as a new Vice Principal. Six months later - or sooner - they will be removed.
11. Senior International posts within the school are awarded without advertising and without interviews of others. Jennifer Mackenzie (now Wemyss), the current International Vice Principal at Shymkent NIS Biology and Chemistry school, was handed the job in June 2017. POOF ! As if by magic !
12. If you have a heavy alcohol drinking habit, you will thrive in this environment. The ex-pat management will love and welcome you.
13. There is an inherent culture of tolerated exam cheating alien to teachers from Western educational systems.
So....the choice is yours !!!
I had 2 interesting years from 2015 to 2017...I was offered a third, but declined.
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