Teaching Abroad: Where would offer most saving opportunities?

LittleBrick

I have googled (quite extensively at this point), and don't seem to be any closer to a definitive answer.



I am looking at teaching abroad to experience a new culture and save a bit. The countries I'm looking at are: China (Shanghai or Beijing, or any other city people may recommend), UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Kazakhstan. Other places would also be considered, but these are the countries that seem to be mentioned most frequently.


Anyone here able to help on what areas would offer the best wages and savings opportunities while also experiencing a new culture and a relatively nice standard of living? (By nice, I mean about the same as Ireland).

marialouise

What is it that you would be teaching, and what experience do you have?

HBC08

What are your qualifications?
That will greatly influence your options.
Teaching abroad isn't the wild west it was when I was at it in the 00s

LittleBrick

B.Ed and M.Ed, primary teacher.

clever user name

Middle East or China would be my guess. Can't really speak for the Middle East (I did briefly live in UAE, but wasn't for me), but if you have any questions regarding China feel free to ask.

For China in particular, positions at (proper) international schools would probably start at about 25k RMB per month (roughly 3000 euro), or 22.5k after tax. On top of that you'll either get an apartment, or a monthly housing allowance. Other bonuses and sh**e too. Don't rely on these numbers too much though, they can vary quite a bit depending on the school, the city and the teacher themselves. Be careful, there are lots of so called 'international' schools here that are anything but.

At lot of qualified teachers from the UK and Ireland that I know here tend to work at IB schools. Easy to weed out the accredited ones in this case as they are listed on the official IB website.

Regarding lifestyle, you can live a lot more comfortably here than you can in Ireland when it comes to money. It's just not something you have to worry about here. I save about 1,500 euro a month, buy a stupid amount of food ingredients and kitchen stuff, and still don't even need to worry about what I'm spending on a day to day basis.

When it comes to what city to live in, how long have you got?! The one thing I will say is that, when you are an experienced and qualified teacher, there is not a huge difference in terms of between Beijing/Shanghai and a tier 2 city. In a lot of cases, no difference at all. There is however, a difference when it comes to cost of living. It's all personal preference though, having been to Beijing and Shanghai you couldn't pay me enough to work in either of them. Great to visit, but that's about it. Most smaller cities (they're not small) will have plenty of the same stuff; expats, bars, restaurants, things to do etc. Just on a slightly smaller scale. Nanjing, Suzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, Hangzhou, Xiamen, Xi'an, Dalian, Changsha, Wuhan (yes, really) etc. the list goes on.

Anyway, if you have any China related questions fire away.

dwayneshintzy

If you're able to get into an international school or on the NET scheme in Hong Kong, there's an opportunity to save quite a bit. Things have been a bit mad over the past 18 months admittedly, but it's still a great city.