Was contacted by a friend who is a teacher. It seems that Aramco is making a big push to hire more teachers for it's schools. I didn't know what to tell him because I've been gone for several years. When I was there, the schools seemed pretty good, but the influx of non Western kids was steadily increasing. From a management standpoint, seems like the schools were one of the few things the locals left alone, but I'm not sure if that is still true. Does anybody know if things have changed?
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SAES used to be great place however gone down the rathole gradually in the last ten years and now reached the rock bottom: it ıs horrıble institution wıth jerk admınıstrators on the top doing nothing (more admin than teachers!) caring about pleasıng / brown nosing their Saudi bosses, caring very least about educating your kids. Most Teachers are demotivated and mediocre, administrators won't survive a day in a normal schooling system with any degree of accountability. Admins do horrible job and rather than firing them, they transfer them to HR and other parts of the company.. Expensive, inefficient, poor quality and hypocritical. Best thing to do is to fire the top, keep best teachers and outsource ASAP. The school can not even manage busses running on time, let alone an education !
Influx of non-western kids? (You mean all the hard working brown/Asian kids with western passports?)
If this bothers your friend, they should definitely not go..
But they will go to KSA , because they are desperate to better their finances. That’s the only reason people go to KSA; Money.
The truth is that this site is full of hate and resentment. Trust me, I feel it too. I lasted only 2 years in that place (resigned) and coming home was still tough. I had a horrible racist Saudi manager and my team were a bunch of backstabbers (funnily enough the biggest culprits were American passport holders. Note, I said holders) But the reality is people are happy and settled there and most of us would go back if given the opportunity and make a better experience of it.
It’s the people that make a place. I’m grateful to the American teachers who gave my kids a wonderful experience. The school had excellent resources and it was overall a very happy environment for the kids.
SAES are considered an expensive load, regardless efforts to keep it cheap, then SAES is in the list to give away for a third company, also to meet Kingdom rules.
Then as always, it is an opportunity to go and check but is far away of the safe and sound job of earlier days were a completely teachers family spent decades.
Maybe they would be suitable for primary but for secondary, it is better to have a proper school.
Sounds like a nightmare placing your child in this enviroment. The schools were good back in the day when aramco was not fully run by saudi aramco nationals. Why would they care about your child's education?
Something happens cause any good teacher is not staying for more than 6 months, I don't blame students or their nationalities, corruption inside SAES is one part, environment is the other one, limited living experience specially if you go to the most isolate camps. Good ones try to fight the system and ends leaving frustrated.
English is a second language for most of the children enrolled, just like an inner city school back home. It’s never going to excel with that kind of cohort.
Native English speakers get pulled down, if you child is bright, ditto. The other options outside camp are not much better.
Schools are not good. Teachers are very average, better options off camp.
To the person who wrote the original post and asked this question. I am a teacher at SAES and I find it odd that you have to mention an influx of non western children. Was that a problem for you? If so, you should not be in the field of educating young minds.
My kids class was 80% Muslims. Kids from the region, think Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, India and some Saudis on (technically forbidden) foreign passports. One or two Americans and Brits. It’s not a western education. The Muslims kids go into a separate Arabic stream and learn their language.
K4 and Kindergarten are almost 100% Saudi kids as they can use those facilities “legally” in those first few years.
Teachers are all Americans, and from our experience they were good. During Ramadan the school has to deal with the shorter days and fasting etc just like anywhere else. If you want anything close to a decent western education, avoid in my view. But then avoid KSA entirely on that point!
Yeah. My kids didn't take to the Wahabi POV.
We went LDS and much smoother bedtimes now.