Pros
1. High pay for fresh graduates. 2. You can come in latest by 4pm on Fridays. 3. Curriculum is given so we only need to think of games to execute the lesson plans. 4. I was lucky to be posted to a great centre. 5. The system really works for children. 6. The children are adorable and smart, and their parents are usually very nice and they heed advices well.
Cons
1. They changed the contract details after my batch joined, so the end-of-contract bonus was gone. That results in leaving us with no incentive for staying in the company for 2 years. So I left after a year plus. 2. Another change was the working time on your non-duty day during the weekday. They made it compulsory for you to start work at 1pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays. 3. Inflexible work hours - you can’t leave early even if all your classes have ended for the day. 4. They do not trust you so they require all centre staff to sign in and out on papers. Micromanagement at its finest. 5. They waste lots and lots of papers throughout the year. 6. They introduce more and more admin chores to justify why we need to start work at 1pm on non-duty days. 7. The great centre that I was posted to was not what I requested for during interviews. 8. Teachers throughout the island have different work loads due to their centres’ location and popularity, so this results in unfairness. Teacher A teaches more classes and children than Teacher B but they get the same pay. 9. The money-face management is ending themselves by increasing the maximum number of children in a class. This results in a worsened teacher:student ratio that will show in the amount of time children spend in per level. It used to be an okay 1:8, now, it is now 1:10 and often 1:11. This unnecessary change was not discussed with teachers and definitely not discussed with benefitting the children in mind, they are changing this in order to increase profits. 10. They force people to do things they don’t want to or cannot do. They expect a fish to climb trees. 11. We are not allowed to speak truthfully to parents about their children’s progress due to the thoughtless system they introduced for promoting children to the Reading programme. 12. We feel like we are just a small cog. We don’t feel like they listen to us and our professional advices. We as educators are passionate in helping the children but we don’t feel that passion from the management. There are so many great teachers leaving and not enough new teachers to come in and fill the hole. I left before they were able to find a new teacher to replace me, even though the notice period was THREE MONTHS.