Articles on our Blog that mention this school (newest articles are shown first):

Comparing the Schools and Comments

Comparing the Schools and Comments: Working in Indonesia

December 21, 2017

Around the world, there are countries (like Indonesia) that have more than one international school. Many times there is an American school, a British School, and an international school that uses an international curriculum.

Some countries, though, have MANY international schools!  When that is the case, how do the comments about each school compare to each other?

This blog series looks at comparing some of these comments, all coming from international schools in the same city.

Indonesia

Currently, we have 53 schools listed in Indonesia on International School Community.

23 of these schools have had comments submitted on them. Here are a few that have the most submitted comments:

Australian International School (Indonesia) (39 Total Comments)
Beacon Academy (Indonesia) (32 Total Comments)
Gandhi Memorial Intercontinental School (34 Total Comments)
Global Jaya School (33 Total Comments)
Green School Bali (70 Total Comments)
North Jakarta International School (29 Total Comments)
Raffles International Christian School (33 Total Comments)
Royal Tots Academy (35 Total Comments)
Sekolah Victory Plus (118 Total Comments)
Surabaya Intercultural School (54 Total Comments)

Hiring Policies

“The school typically hire teachers from India. The job advertisements are published on local websites and Indian newspapers namely Times of India and Hindustan Times. Shortlisted candidates are called for face to face interview usually in New Delhi in the month of February most of the times. Couples and teachers with family are very much welcome.” – Gandhi Memorial Intercontinental School

“The school went to the UNI fair in February 2012. It is important to note that the reporting date for new teachers is during the last week of July. The school is not able to hire teachers over 55 years of age. Min. 3-yrs. successful overseas experience is preferred.” – Surabaya Intercultural School

“The school generally does not attend recruitment fairs, they prefer Skype interviews or face to face if you are already in Indonesia.” – Sekolah Victory Plus

School Campus

“School is located in a high-rise building alongside several embassies. The students ride the elevator to transfer to the library, a small playground and cafeteria.” – Royal Tots Academy

“The website will show it all. There are drawbacks to teaching in this type of environment though. Mold, bat guano, sweat, snakes, leaky roofs… It takes a special kind of person to show up day in and day out. Regarding the surrounding area- jungle.” – Green School Bali

“The Kemang campus is very green and small; great for the kids to get around!” – Australian International School (Indonesia)

Housing Information

“Teachers share a 2-bedroom apartment unit within the school compound. The school pays for the rent while teachers pay for utilities such as electricity, water and other building fees (e.g., surcharge and sinking fund), which can be ridiculously expensive. Some students and their family live in the same apartment therefore teachers end up feeling that they live in a bubble. There is an option for teachers to live alone in a 1-bedroom apartment unit at a nearby apartment building, however teachers will have to shoulder the difference of rent (from the original teacher housing).” – Royal Tots Academy

“Housing allowance has been recently increased by almost double.” – Sekolah Victory Plus

“Teachers live in apartments that are close to the school. The apartments are for single occupancy. The apartments come furnished.” – Beacon Academy (Indonesia)

“The school provides 2 bed rooms furnished apartments to all expat teachers and staff. Utilities are paid by the school up to a limit which is very much generous.” – Gandhi Memorial Intercontinental School

Health insurance and medical benefits

“Full international health coverage. Very good program.” – Green School Bali

“There is medical benefit but it is meagre and can only be used if its in-patient hospital service. Teachers pay for doctor consultation especially when it is out-patient hospital/clinic service.” – Royal Tots Academy

“Outpatient is not covered, you can reimburse 85% of bills up to a maximum of 2,500,000 per year.” – Sekolah Victory Plus

“Excellent medical benefits are provided.” – Surabaya Intercultural School

(These are just 4 of the 65 different comments topics that on each school profile page on our website.)

If you work at an international school in Indonesia, share what you know. Consider becoming a Mayor for unlimited premium membership!

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An Insider's Story

International School Libraries: An Insider’s Story

July 27, 2017

Let’s daydream for moment, shall we?

A successful international school library is the center of the school, both physically and metaphorically. It is the hub of student learning, active and buzzing with the newest technologies, inquiry-driven investigations, maker space or STEM stations, and thousands of books available on any and all topics that could occur to members of the school community. The Teacher Librarian is an active part of the teaching community, integrating information literacy skills into the curriculum and supporting the teachers and staff in using best practices. He or she is passionate about all things literary and encourages a love of reading in students, matching reluctant readers with the perfect book to awaken their inner bookworm.

Hey – a girl can dream, can’t she?

Because sometimes the library isn’t at the center of the school, and instead it’s in the basement. (Albeit the basement of an old mansion house.) And sometimes it’s a ‘Learning Commons’ or a “Media Center’ or it’s called-something-else-other-than-a-library. As is the case with most international schools, all international school libraries are not created equal.

I’ve been working as an International School Teacher Librarian for nine years now, and the more colleagues I meet and Facebook groups I join and listservs I read, that idea is drilled home. All libraries are not created equal. Some librarians have multiple assistants, healthy budgets, abundant resources and administrative support. A lot of librarians don’t have any or all of those things. Some libraries are full of amazing resources for their school community, and some are full of dusty old books that are older than I am.

Every library seems to have its issues. Here are a few examples from my own international career:

• I was offered a job in one library that was hoping I could help it to automate from the old card catalogue to a computer system… in the 21^st century!
• In Barcelona there was one library – and only one librarian – for an entire EC-thru-grade-12 school. (They’ve since hired more people and built a gorgeous new library!)
• In London there were three libraries and three librarians, but no assistants (which meant it was hard to ever leave the library, and therefore to do much collaboration), small budgets and no windows in my library.
• In Dar es Salaam I have assistants (which brings along a whole other set of issues), a decent budget, and an elementary counterpart – but it is very difficult to get books into the country through customs and a corrupt governing system.

BUT.

But – each of these libraries has given me opportunities that I didn’t have as a librarian in the USA. I have always had the autonomy and support to make the library a central part of the school and of student learning. I’ve been able to collaborate with amazing teachers, had opportunities to win over reluctant teachers, and been involved with planning exciting interdisciplinary units. The Teacher Librarian role has been a leadership role, seated at the table with other leaders making decisions about what’s best for our students. And I’ve been supported to take leadership roles in the librarian community – to attend great PD, present at international conferences, join professional organizations, and to serve on the ECIS Librarian Special Interest Committee.

When schools in the US are getting rid of librarians, closing libraries, moving away from the written word – these have been blessings that make the rest of the issues worth it.

If you’re thinking about working in an International School library, do your homework. We are research specialists, after all! Find out about staffing, budgets, PD opportunities, leadership roles, curriculum, attitudes toward the library and the challenges the current librarian faces. You know which of things these are most important to you, what you can handle and what’s a deal breaker. Automating an entire collection was not how I wanted to spend my time as a Teacher Librarian, but perhaps the thought excites you. Find the right fit for what you are looking for in your international experience, where you are in your career, and what fits your strengths.

The International School Community website has great resources to help you do this! See below for specifics on how to use the comment search to find information about libraries.

My last bit of advice – find a network! Librarians are often the lone librarian in a school or part of a small team. It’s important to find the connections and support of other librarians. Because most international schools are in big cities, there are often other international school librarians nearby to connect with. There are also regional associations – your school should be able to point you towards the ones they participate in.

There are always other librarians who have dealt with the same issues, solved the same problems, created the same resources, etc. And I’ve found the librarian community to be great at sharing, commiserating with and supporting one another. Some personal favorites are the Int’l School Library Connection Facebook group and the ECIS iSkoodle listserv. AND – most excitingly – the ECIS Triennial Librarian Conference is in February 2018 in Chennai, India. International school librarians from all over the world will come together to learn from each other, get inspired by each other, and learn how we can continue to be Leaders in our school communities. Please join us!

This article was submitted to us by an International School Community member.

Using our unique Comment Search feature on our website (premium membership access needed), we found 61 comments that have the keyword “library” in them, and 20 comments that had the word “libraries” in them.

Here are some comments that shown a positive light on the library and their international schools:

“The library department recently got a lot of money to do some renovations which were done this past summer. It is almost complete and looks very nice.” International School of Tanganyika

“The SIS library supports the school curriculum, promotes the appreciation of literature, and guides all its patrons in information problem-solving with over 28,000 print and electronic resources.” – Surabaya Intercultural School

“The library also is great because we have 25,000 books for such a small sized school, in English and Italian.” – The Bilingual School of Monza

“The library has a new video viewing room that is useful for a small class of IB Film Making, or webinars, or our face to faith programme.” – Sekolah Victory Plus

and here are a few comments that stated their school library was in need of updating or some tender-loving care:

“The school’s library was very small and I was given no materials to use to teach language arts and social studies. Picture books were essential for my young learners and if you can, bring them from the states.” – Antigua International School Guatemala

“There are text books for main subjects but the media library resources are next to nil and specialists have zero to bare basics.” – Jeddah Knowledge International School

“No library for middle of high school!” – Canadian International School (Tokyo)

“There are more computers in the library but some are so old they still run Windows XP!” – EtonHouse International Schools, Wuxi

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Discussion Topics

9 MORE International Educators Share their Hospital Visit Experiences from Around the World

February 5, 2023

There is much to be potentially nervous about when going to a hospital in your host country.

Once I asked a doctor in China who was servicing an infected open wound on my leg, “what are you putting in my wound?” He replied, “I don’t think you would want to know.” I told him to tell me. He said, “Cockroach juice!”

Luckily, I was open to Chinese medicine and thought how cool is this?! Also thinking, this would never happen in a hospital in the USA! (My wound healed up very nicely, by the way.)

But this experience is just one out of many, many experiences of expats going to hospitals in China. So to learn more about what hospital experiences are like in China, you would need to keep asking around to learn more and more.

The hospitals around the world do vary and so does the health coverage that international school teachers receive while they are working abroad.

There are so many factors that can affect your experiences: payment, language, cultural differences, location, etc

After searching the keyword ‘hospital‘ using our Comments Search function on our website (premium access required), we found 286 comments. Here are 9 of them that give some insight into the hospital experience in different countries around the world.

I-shou International School
(75 total comments)

“A visit to the doctor is usually $150-$200TWD ($6-7USD). That is all you’ll pay. If you need to stay overnight in the hospital a quad shared room is free, a double shared room is $1000TWD, and a private room is $1500TWD ($60USD!!!)…”

Vienna International School
(86 total comments)

“Austria has state-maintained (public) hospitals and private hospitals. The best-known type of hospital is the general hospital, which is set up to deal with many kinds of disease and injury, and typically has an emergency ward or A&E department to deal with immediate threats to health and the capacity to dispatch emergency medical services. All hospitals, with the exception of some private clinics, are open to all insured patients. Normally doctors transfer patients to a hospital and control of treatment is then managed by a doctor there. When going to a hospital or clinic, you need to take your e-card with you. If you are ever admitted to hospital, your health insurance will cover the costs of that stay. All hospitals run a special accident and emergency department (Notaufnahme), where you go if you need urgent and immediate medical attention at any time.”

Xian Liangjiatan International School
(84 total comments)

“Local hospitals can be quite crowded, especially the lab-collection sections. Definitely a different atmosphere than American hospitals/clinics…”

International School of Bucharest
(70 total comments)

“Private health insurance is provided in-country only, although this also grants you emergency care throughout the EU c/o the government. Romanian hospitals are certainly not the best! Some medical care however is surprisingly good; it really just depends what it is…”

Bishkek International School
(81 total comments)

“Most avoid local hospitals and usually pursue treatment in private medical establishments. For many routine things, the prices are so low that there is no reimbursement. There is at least one clinic with US doctors and there may be more with other foreign-trained staff. Some Turkish doctors/clinics are available, they often know English and provide high-quality care for a reasonable price.

Avoid using state-run healthcare, mostly because they are short-staffed, often underfunded, and have many other burdens. There is no major problem, especially if you just need a simple infection or issue checked out, but you will have a difficult time communicating.

Be wary of some private clinics that will try to get extra money from you for extra services. Some places offer interpreting and a steep cost. It might be better to take a trustworthy friend or colleague to help you and offer them a nice meal…”

Surabaya Intercultural School
(98 total comments)

“Great medical insurance. Local hospitals are nice but it is recommended to take a local with you. Appointments often involve a lot of waiting. If you need serious surgery people usually fly to Singapore. Some vaccines are unavailable…”

Canadian International School (Hong Kong)
(185 total comments)

“CDNIS have steadily increased the quality of medical benefits available to faculty and staff. In addition, employees have access to inexpensive optional dental insurance through Quality Health, which has a large network throughout the city. Local hospitals sometimes have long waiting times so in emergencies some choose to go to private hospitals and pay the difference out of pocket. Other times, local hospitals are the best option because they are ridiculously inexpensive and the staff are very often highly specialized in certain treatments or procedures…”

TASIS The American School in Switzerland
(40 total comments)

“We don’t know Italian very well, and we had to recently call the hospital because our baby was feeling sick. We asked the person on the phone if they knew how to speak English, and she said know. We asked if she could speak Swiss German, and she said no. Then we asked if she could speak Serbian (we are from Serbia) and she said ‘si!’ and then we continued the conversation in Serbian after that. There are a lot of Serbs here…”

Inter-community School Zurich
(81 total comments)

“My experiences at hospitals here have been excellent, way better than my time in France for example. You do need to pay, of course, for this insurance. You can shop around many choices for health insurance here. There is something for everyone, but you’ll need to pay for it. I chose one for CHF 3000 a year, but I do have a deductible that I need to pay off when I receive the services…”

Check out the first “9 International Educators Share their Hospital Visit Experiences from Around the World” ISC blog article here. And log on to the International School Community website today and share your experiences going to the hospital in your own host country!

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