{"id":8280,"date":"2021-02-28T15:16:56","date_gmt":"2021-02-28T15:16:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=8280"},"modified":"2026-06-11T09:45:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T23:45:31","slug":"so-many-international-schools-without-retirement-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/so-many-international-schools-without-retirement-plans\/","title":{"rendered":"So Many International Schools WITHOUT Retirement Plans!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It is on all international school teachers’ minds. How am I helping to contribute to my future now (for when I retire\/stop working) as a current teacher in the international school community?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Not that everything is all worry-free if you just stayed teaching and earning money in your home country, but living and teaching abroad can sound pretty risky to some people (maybe even many<\/em> people).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are working at an international school that has an amazingly high salary with equally amazing benefits, then that is one story. Even if this type of school doesn’t actually offer a nice retirement plan benefit, you still have the opportunity to save a lot of money<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you are working at an international school and receiving a salary that helps you ‘just get by’ along with very average benefits (for example, there is not<\/em> a retirement plan benefit that is on offer to you), then international school educators need to consider if the experience working at this type of international school is a good fit for their future plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does an international school that doesn’t offer a retirement or pension plan benefit immediately equate to being a bad decision for your future? Not necessarily. If you are only planning on staying there for one to two years, then it shouldn’t make that big of a difference. If you receiving a high salary along with paid housing, not having an established pension plan benefit shouldn’t make that big of a difference because your savings potential is high. Hopefully, you have a laser-focused investment plan for all of that money saved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But for those of us that are not so smart with money and don’t have the expertise to manage our own savings\/retirement plan, it can definitely not<\/em> bit a good fit to accept a teaching job at a school that doesn’t offer retirement plan benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We did a keyword search on our Comment Search<\/a> feature and found a number of comments related to international schools that don’t offer a retirement or pension plan benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found 26 comments<\/a> when we searched the short phrase: “No retirement<\/a>”
Here are a few of those comments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amman Baccalaureate School <\/a><\/strong>(16) Total comments
“<\/em>N<\/strong>o retirement<\/strong> plan right now is on offer as a benefit.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canadian International School (Tokyo) <\/strong><\/a>(93) Total comments<\/em>
“No retirement<\/strong> plan for teachers.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International School Ho Chi Minh City<\/strong><\/a> (93) Total comments<\/em>
“Unfortunately there is no retirement<\/strong> plan.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also searched the short phrase “No pension<\/a>” and found 85 comments<\/a>.
Here are a few of those comments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zhuhai International School <\/strong><\/a>(121) Total comments
<\/em>“There are no pension<\/strong> plans from the school (included in the contract) although if you wished to establish one the office staff would be able to assist you in establishing one.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Varee Chiang Mai International School <\/strong><\/a>(117) Total comments
<\/em>“There is no pension<\/strong> provision, but an end-of-contract gratuity is awarded in lieu.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stamford American International School<\/strong><\/a> (307) Total comments<\/em>
“There is no pension<\/strong>, but this means you can invest your money as you see fit. There is a 15% allowance that is paid monthly with your salary. This is “in lieu of CPF” which is paid for Singaporeans and PR.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the more positive side, we had a quick search for this key phrase “matching<\/a>” (30 comments) hoping to find comments related to international schools that match the pension plan contribution of the teachers.  
Here are a few of those comments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American International School Vienna <\/strong><\/a>(81) Total comments
<\/em>“Under the newest contract, teachers now have 10% matching<\/strong> for retirement fund commencing at first year. Certainly better if you’re there short-term, though perhaps not if you’d plan to stay 30 years.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hong Kong International School <\/strong><\/a>(151) Total comments
<\/em>“I spend a lot of money here because I love to do eat out a lot, travel, and there are many things to do in the city. With that being said, I save about 1,300 USD a month, not counting the school severance\/matching<\/strong> scheme which is another 1,300 USD.”

Cairo American College<\/strong><\/a> (196) Total comments<\/em>
“The pay continues to be good. There is now a higher matching<\/strong> for retirement. The cost of living is still very inexpensive in Egypt.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is on all international school teachers’ minds. How am I helping to contribute to my future now (for when I retire\/stop working) as a current teacher in the international school community? Not that everything is all worry-free if you just stayed teaching and earning money in your home country, but living and teaching abroad… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_angie_page":false,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"page_builder":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[18,2694],"tags":[1060,3114,999,129,1704,1918,1845,2354,2356,2355],"class_list":["post-8280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iscommunity-features","category-money-diaries","tag-amman-baccalaureate-school","tag-benefit-pension","tag-canadian-international-school-tokyo","tag-hong-kong-international-school","tag-international-school-benefits","tag-pension-plan","tag-planning-for-retirement","tag-retirement-plan","tag-varee-chiang-mai-international-school","tag-zhuhai-international-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/bills-496229_1280-1024x682.jpg?fit=1024%2C682&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2flVT-29y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3384,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/blogs-international-school-teachers-ddsdf\/","url_meta":{"origin":8280,"position":0},"title":"Blogs for international school teachers: \u201cCliff Jumping: Risk-taking and New Beginnings\u201d (From a retired international educator)","author":"ISCommunity","date":"June 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Our 37th blog that we would like to highlight is called \"Cliff Jumping: Risk-taking and New Beginnings\"\u00a0 Check out the blog entries of this retired international school teacher\u00a0that currently is back living in her home country (United States). 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