Comments and information about salaries on ISCommunity #3: Morrison Christian Academy, Jeddah Knowledge Int’l School & Colegio Granadino Manizales

Comments and information about salaries at international schools on International School Community

Every week members are leaving information and comments on the salaries that teachers are making at international schools around the world.  Which ones pay more?  Which ones do you have to pay very high taxes?  Which ones offer tax-free salaries?  All important questions to think about when job searching, but where to find the answers to those questions?

Why do some international schools keep their specific salary information so secret?  Even at international school job fairs, you don’t really get to see the exact amount of your yearly and monthly salary until you see the contract paperwork.  Even then sometimes you don’t know what will be your exact take-home pay each month.  At International School Community, we want to make the search for salaries easier for international school teachers. In the benefits section of the school profile page, there is a section specifically for salaries.  The topic is: “Average monthly salary after taxes and in what currency (explain taxation situation). How often do you get paid throughout the year?”

Here are 3 out of the many comments and information related to salaries that have been posted on our website:


Morrison Christian Academy (3 campuses)
“Staff receive salaries from July to June. New staff’s July payroll will be paid in NT$ cash and can be picked up from the campus cashier when they arrive in Taiwan after July 20. In light of summer travel, May and June payrolls are both paid in May. Normally, the salary is deposited into a NT$ Post Office (which functions somewhat like a bank) account, unless staff specify otherwise. Staff can choose to have all or portion of the salary paid in form of a US$ check or direct deposit into a US checking account.”


Jeddah Knowledge International School
“Teachers can expect to get around 3600 USD a month, net, because there are 0 taxes on their salaries. It is important to know that salaries are paid in Saudi Riyal.”


Colegio Granadino Manizales
“Deductions on your salary is social security which is 8% of your pesos salary (50% of your salary is paid in local peseo, the other 50% is paid in USD.). Manizales has a low monthly cost of living. Staff members typically live on their pesos monthly salary and save their US payment.”

Check out the other comments and information about these schools on our website: www.internationalschoolcommunity.com

Hightlighted article: The 10 Fastest-Growing (and Declining) Cities in the World


Shanghai, China

Are you considering whether the city you might work in is a city decline?  Are you specifically looking for international schools in cities that are considered to be the fastest growing in the world?

It might be something to consider as it might directly effect your experience at a school in one of those cites.  If in a declining city, the international schools there might have declines in student numbers as a result, cash-flow might be a problem in the business department, your benefits might not increase each year or even worse might disappear altogether, etc…  If you are placed at an international school that is considered to be in one of the fastest growing cities, the international schools there might have increasing students as a result, the city you are living in might be improving themselves left and right, the expat life there might been a booming one, etc…

So, which cities are the ones in decline and which cities are the ones that are the fastest-growing?

A new survey from the Brookings Institution ranks the world’s 200 largest metropolitan economies — which account for half of global GDP — from 1-200. And the winners are …

From the report: Shanghai won gold in the Brookings report by winning a double silver in income and employment growth. “Only Shenyang achieved faster income growth, and only Riyadh achieved faster employment growth, than Shanghai last year.”

It is sometimes said that geography is destiny. But a tour of the cities dotting the Mediterranean Sea suggests that nearby metros can have wildly divergent fortunes. Turkey is home to three of the most dynamic metros in the world, according to Brookings, including the surprising Izmir. Meanwhile across the Aegean Sea, Athens had by far the worst 2011 of any major city, with the world’s largest drops in income and employment. A little further west, three Spanish cities along the Mediterranean coast — Valencia, Barcelona, and Seville — were also among the 10 least dynamic cities in the world last year.

“The metro areas at the bottom of the rankings are overwhelmingly affected by the euro zone crisis,” said Emilia Istrate, a senior research analyst with Brookings. “This cities are facing national and international crises.” Richmond and Sacramento are the only American cities in the bottom ten. “These state capitals are still in decline, not because of international crises, but because of local circumstances,” Istrate said. “Government cuts and real estate over-investment from the better years are dragging down growth.”

The most important lesson from this survey is a lesson you already know. The fastest-growing cities and countries are almost always in the developing world. As poorer countries join the vibrant global economy and gain access to consumers and investors with considerable means, there is more low-hanging fruit for them to build on a smaller base of wealth. A city like Hangzhou, China, can triple its GDP in eight years. In fact, it did. If a city like San Jose (CA) tripled its GDP in eight years, the median wage would be nearly $200,000.

Izmir, Turkey, and Santiago, Chile, two of the fastest growing cities in the world, are also among the 20 poorest cities in Brookings’ survey. In the full list of the richest and poorest metropolitan economies, only Houston finished in the top 20 among both the richest and the fastest-growing metros. That’s a remarkable accomplishment for the Texas energy hub, but it’s also an indication that “fastest-growing” and “richest” are barely overlapping Venn diagrams.

Check out all the international schools in these cities on our Schools List page on International School Community.

Language Learning and Pass Bands: Achieving the ‘Perfect Pitch’ in a 2nd Language.

The Nagawoshi International School website has posted some intriguing information about their bilingual immersion programme model and about pass bands.  A pass band is a range at which a language is heard in terms of Hz.  How well versed are international schools in 2nd language acquisition?  The following is what Nagawoshi had to say:

Why do we teach English to young children?

“It has been proven that there is a barrier found in the brain, formed by the age of 6 years old, which acts as a sound barrier. Before the age of 6 however, children are able to recognize sounds more easily and are able to reproduce many of these sounds. This ability to hear and reproduce allows the child to naturally acquire language through physical sound. After the age of 6 years old, children begin to intellectually learn language. In order to acquire language, specific input of sounds and languages (English and Japanese) need to be provided at the same time for children at this critical stage in childhood development.”

What is ‘Perfect Pitch’? The necessity of early sound education.

“It is well known that infants already have the ability to hear sounds when they are in the mother’s womb. Through extensive study, dramatic findings in the fields of music and linguistics by Dr. Don Cambell and Dr. Alfred Thomasty were produced. These studies found a high correlation between high frequency and the development of brain nerves. What was concluded was that ‘sounds that he/she has never heard would not be included in one’s voice,’ that is, it is necessary for specific sounds to be heard during early childhood in order for those sounds to be reproduced more accurately in the future. Japanese people have difficulty with English pronunciation and basic listening, even though they study and hear English throughout their lives. This can be related back to an ability to hear frequencies between 125-1500 Hz and an inability to hear English’s 2000-12000 Hz frequencies. Being that a child listening ability is developed and completed between the ages of 3-6 years old, the opportunity during this salient period in maturation cannot be missed. Children need to be educated at the appropriate time in their developmental cycles. (Professor Norimasa Kamata, Former Professor of Education at Kagoshima University.)”

“Immersion Education is one of the important parts of an instruction which brings up children who acquire both English as a second language and Japanese as their first. By immersing children into English through daily educational activities, the opportunity to learn sound, rhythm and word usage in English through music and play becomes natural. It is a special opportunity for young children in their most important and flexible stage of life to be able to master languages in a supportive surrounding through interaction with native English teachers, friends, family and the community.”

The table of perfect pitch according to age
Age
3yrs
4yrs
5yrs
6yrs
7yrs

Average skill to acquire Perfect pitch
2.5～3
2
1
0.5
0

Excerpts of this article are taken from this school’s website:

All about schools

More features

Let's connect

Meet us on Facebook
Follow our Tweets
Join our Linked In Group

IS Community