Hi all prospected teachers going to Surabaya, Indonesia!

Please watch out for a private language school called AE (Activate English) aka World English! I was working there, but had to leave due to some SERIOUS problems with the management. First off all, they don't pay on time, you have to beg them to get your salary (always late or only partially paid), secondly, they don't provide housing like the other schools but give you only Rp. 1000 000 (about US$ 100). You can't get a room for that amount of money. In the contract they offer medical insurance: Don't believe it, there was no medical insurance at all. I was in an accident once and had HUGE problems to get the money for the medical treatment out of them. The end of term tests are in a mess with lots of mistakes and they will eventually pass all the students, even though we have failed some of them them. Luckily I had the students firmly behind me and will have a good reference from them. I am not the only teacher complaining about them. Read this blog to get a view from another teacher: kristofab.blogspot.com/2006/10/freedom-of-speech-and-how-ae-fired-me.html - 37k -

The management doesn't commmunicate with the teachers at all! You are totally on your own. If you want to talk to them they are most of the time not available. They also change their phone numbers, so that you can't reach them. They have refused several requests for a meeting telling us to give them a list about the things we want to talk about before, and then they will tell us if we can have a meeting or not. The "manager" and his Indonesian wife have treated the teachers with no respect and they don't care about the school, students and teachers, it's all about money for them.

The school is going down and 2 of us teachers left because of the same reasons. (After we gave them the 2 months notice required, they treated us even worse!!)

Beware: They also advertise on other names like 'World English". The address is Raya Dharmahusada 177, Surabaya. They also have 2 other local schools , one in Sidoarjo and one at PTC mall, West Surabaya. They are also running the local brance of Westcoast University.

Take it from me, I have worked for many schools before, but AE is the worst ever.