Anyone Employed By, Or Have Experience With Interac?

[Rezz]

I or someone I know may or may not have an interview with Interac

Seriously though what are peoples thoughts? I've done heaps of research already but you've got to take every word with a pinch of salt... it seems a lot of the people who've had bad experiences generally expect either the Board of Education or Interac to side with them if a dispute arises (dpending on who its with), not knowing that it's Interac who have about 5 people waiting to take you're place if you can't handle it lol.

Also the level of help from Interac depends entirely on your experience in Japan, basically if you're experienced you get none

I've heard JETs actually join Interac to get better holidays despite the lower pay... this I find hard to believe but apparently it's happened.

Thoughts?

[akeenan]

rezz , i worked with interac for a year.

I wasnt so impressed with them

If you read an interac contract they only employ you for 29 hours... so they get out of having to pay insurance for you.

They claimed that only the teaching hours I was scheduled to work at school I had to stay at the school and non teaching hours were my own free time.. however I was never alowed to leave the schools ... therefore not my own free time.

Whenever I rang up they never knew who I was, and they could never answer my questions straight away..

They did pay a little more than the other ALT companies ... but a 250k wage these days is shit all.

They did pay 80% of my wage in August(the summer holiday) instead of 50% and 0% like other companies

However overall I wasnt very impressed with them .... but what can you say about ALT companies these days . . .

If you want more info PM me.

However if you get a good school / schools and become friends with the Principal you can pretty much do whatever you like.

[m3gtr]

I or someone I know may or may not have an interview with Interac

Seriously though what are peoples thoughts? I've done heaps of research already but you've got to take every word with a pinch of salt... it seems a lot of the people who've had bad experiences generally expect either the Board of Education or Interac to side with them if a dispute arises (dpending on who its with), not knowing that it's Interac who have about 5 people waiting to take you're place if you can't handle it lol.

Also the level of help from Interac depends entirely on your experience in Japan, basically if you're experienced you get none

I've heard JETs actually join Interac to get better holidays despite the lower pay... this I find hard to believe but apparently it's happened.

Thoughts?

Rezz,

Things arent as rosy as they used to be in the education industry here. Interac are dispatch for JH and HS here im sure you know and they have steadily been lowering their base wage to take advantage of the growing glut in the teachers market.

I think at one point they were offering salaries as low as 180k part time and up to 250k full time. Wish that was in dollars.

Admittedly, the working hours arent that bad and the kids can be a lot of fun, plus you wont be required to do that much, but youll have to weigh this up when you make the decision.

Dispatch are taking a huge slice of the pie. If you have the qualifications you can go direct. Direct hire is the way to go if you can get it. Try the board of education in your local city. having said that the key is qualifications.

Interac are at the most a springboard for experience - nothing more.

[m3gtr]

However if you get a good school / schools and become friends with the Principal you can pretty much do whatever you like.

There you go.

Get in with the principle and you can effectively cut out interac...

Not so easy.

Keep in mind, they know this and what i dont think Akeenan has mentioned is that they have a clause in your contract that prohibits you from being in contact with the school for a year and half i think if you can your contract, which pretty much baulks your chance to get the direct hire and protects their long term investment.

However, they cannot legally enforce this as it falls outside labor standards law but if it hit the fan, the school will get spooked and say it isnt worth the hassle to fight for you.

If you want to fight interac should it happen, then they wont win but neither will you unfortunately.

I sued one of the biggest eikaiwa here 3 years ago and walked away with a packet. They thought if they pushed me id walk away...well, i belted them good and proper for it.

I dont ever want to go through something like that again.

It just isnt worth it.

[Rezz]

Thanks Andrew, good firsthand experience was what I was after and you delivered.

Basically I'm trying to convince myself not to take the interview. I'm at the stage (well 3 years past the stage actually) of English teaching altogether, but my situation has chaned once again and I have to look at something for at least 6 months to a year to tie me over work wise.

About going direct to the BofE, yep that's what I thought you guys would say, I was aware of the clause in the Interac contract which was what pricked my curiosity about it. I also have been told that the BofE pay Interac in the vicinity of 500,000yen/month per teacher, Interac swiping over half of that for themselves... per month!

I have heaps of experience teaching, I might try my local schools BofE and see what happens, but I suspect thats a very well trodden path and I may have not only missed the boat, but missed the decomissioning of it as well... lol

Adam thats true about the status of the English teaching industry, just nosing around Osaka recently has come up with very few good opportunities for an older jaded fool like myself... seems sub-25 year old professional kids birthday party clown is whats required What I did find surprising is that more people than ever want to come to Japan to live and work! Yep things aren't what they used to be.

Oh also what Adam said about the dodgy business of the dispatch companies, it seems that the majority of public schools are going down that path to source teachers "because it's more convenient", ie: they don't want the hassle of resolving probs/have potential contract breaking senario to deal with. I don't really want to be seen as supporting a parasitic company who offer negligable services for what is a crazy amount of money.

Edited July 25, 2008 by Rezz

[akeenan]

Interac are dispatch for JH and HS

and ES

m3gtr , thants actually how I got hired in my 2nd year. I became friends with the guy who was in charge of hiring the teachers in my area and we cut out interact altogether.

Ive also had legal proceedings with an english company and I too would not like to do that again.

I know Rezz has been in Japan for a long time .. and if I were in his situation I would not feel happy with an interac Job. I think it is a very good idea to head down to your local shi / kuyakusho and speak with the head of english education and see what happens from there.

edit ... damn rezz posted first .

Edited July 25, 2008 by akeenan

[Rezz]

Thanks again guys

I'm going to talk to the local Kyouikuiinkai and see what happens... I don't expect to be very successful but I have a plan of attack so fingers crossed.

[m3gtr]

Good luck with it - make sure you let us know how everything went down.

Hey, at least you werent working for the bunny. Then we'd be really screwed.

[momo]

My two cents, I think maybe youve missed the boat this year, the contact tenders with the BofEs will be sown up by arseholes like siad company by now, but its still worth looking around, the jobs advertised at the mo are highly likely to be replacement positions for teachers droping there contracts, A company I worked for at one point lost there local city contract where I was because they had a huge teacher turn over and ended up unable to fill the positions they'd tendered for! thats where it would be good to get in direct as they would be getting desperate. My situation was I worked for the contracting company then was asked to stay on by the teachers who were going to approach the board for a direct contract but I'd had enough of being a meat puppet by that stage. As far as interac goes I only heard the same as everyone else, But couldnt be too bad to tide you over? I have no first hand experience with them.

The best thing to do would be to aproach private schools, they often employ direct, tend to do things on a whim, ie alot less rigid burocracy to deal with, give you a degree of autonomy in the classroom, better pay and full pay holidays. Thats where Id be looking. especially if you have some good experience to back you up.

Edited July 30, 2008 by momo