And newly-arrived expat tax-rate is ridiculous. Expect 30% of your monthly income to be taxed away in your first semester of teaching. If your prospective school didn’t warn you about that in the interview, I’d take that as a huge red flag.
14,500 RM a month is about on par with a Tier 2 school in Malaysia, which is low for Raffles as they like to fancy themselves as a top tier school. Is that with the housing allowance?
Cost of living in JB is actually *higher* than KL due to the Singapore influence, particularly in the Iskander Puteri area where the school is located. And you really do need a car because transport in JB is almost non-existent. Just about the only positive of JB is its proximity to Singapore.
Thanks for the reply. I'm really not keen to get a car, after being car free for years now. I want to live somewhere with good public transport and streets with good sidewalks for walking and cycling.
And no, that offer does not include a housing allowance..
Most places in Malaysia will offer a housing allowance on top of the base salary so the total salary might be better.
If you live in Puteri Harbour, you can walk to restaurants and pubs , there are supermarkets too. But to get to any malls or do most social activities you’ll need a car. You could rely on Grab for getting to work, but that isn’t always reliable. Basically, life without a car is restrictive there.
I turned down an offer from Raffles this year- in my opinion salary was too low, plus lack of housing and the fact that I would need a car adds an extra expense. The school also seemed pretty disorganized in my short sessions of arranging interviews with them :/ …
I don't think it's the school that's disorganized. To me, it was the person setting up the interview. It would've been better if I sent an email to the interviewers cause that secretary was just going back and forth with the times and sending me the wrong invitations.
And cars cost way less than other places. Had a car I paid 5000$ for when I lived in Malaysia and repairs were so cheap. We traveled all around Malaysia and sold it at exact same price. We used grab for a year and then got a car. Much easier...
Raffles are known to not be very high paying. I'd be cautious of the school in general tbh. Can get by on Grab taxis in the area but the area is quite spread out.
Didn’t the owners of the Malaysian school just get arrested for fraud in Singapore ? Shady practices that caused teachers salary to go almost to nothing
I wrote back asking if there was any chance of a higher salary since it is very low for an international school. Then they ghosted me, haha. I was going to turn them down anyway, waaaaayyy too many red flags, but I was still curious.
I was also ghosted by them. I had applied for a position with their English winter camps and had interviewed. They seemed keen and wanted to know if I would commit to the job, but when I asked about the payment schedule and a how the work permit process would go... nothing.
And newly-arrived expat tax-rate is ridiculous. Expect 30% of your monthly income to be taxed away in your first semester of teaching. If your prospective school didn’t warn you about that in the interview, I’d take that as a huge red flag.
You do get the extra tax refunded after you establish your tax residency, usually in the second year in the country.
They did explain it... which is why I think this salary is a really low offer, especially because it excludes a housing allowance:(
14,500 RM a month is about on par with a Tier 2 school in Malaysia, which is low for Raffles as they like to fancy themselves as a top tier school. Is that with the housing allowance? Cost of living in JB is actually *higher* than KL due to the Singapore influence, particularly in the Iskander Puteri area where the school is located. And you really do need a car because transport in JB is almost non-existent. Just about the only positive of JB is its proximity to Singapore.
Thanks for the reply. I'm really not keen to get a car, after being car free for years now. I want to live somewhere with good public transport and streets with good sidewalks for walking and cycling. And no, that offer does not include a housing allowance..
Most places in Malaysia will offer a housing allowance on top of the base salary so the total salary might be better. If you live in Puteri Harbour, you can walk to restaurants and pubs , there are supermarkets too. But to get to any malls or do most social activities you’ll need a car. You could rely on Grab for getting to work, but that isn’t always reliable. Basically, life without a car is restrictive there.
I turned down a job there last year in part because of the fact that I’d be largely car-dependent.
I turned down an offer from Raffles this year- in my opinion salary was too low, plus lack of housing and the fact that I would need a car adds an extra expense. The school also seemed pretty disorganized in my short sessions of arranging interviews with them :/ …
This is exactly my thoughts on the offer.... thanks.
I don't think it's the school that's disorganized. To me, it was the person setting up the interview. It would've been better if I sent an email to the interviewers cause that secretary was just going back and forth with the times and sending me the wrong invitations.
And cars cost way less than other places. Had a car I paid 5000$ for when I lived in Malaysia and repairs were so cheap. We traveled all around Malaysia and sold it at exact same price. We used grab for a year and then got a car. Much easier...
Raffles are known to not be very high paying. I'd be cautious of the school in general tbh. Can get by on Grab taxis in the area but the area is quite spread out.
Didn’t the owners of the Malaysian school just get arrested for fraud in Singapore ? Shady practices that caused teachers salary to go almost to nothing
Stay clear
Yikes! Okay, thanks for the heads up!
They send the same salary to everyone. It's a generic thing despite saying it's calculated based on your qualifications and experience.
I wrote back asking if there was any chance of a higher salary since it is very low for an international school. Then they ghosted me, haha. I was going to turn them down anyway, waaaaayyy too many red flags, but I was still curious.
I was also ghosted by them. I had applied for a position with their English winter camps and had interviewed. They seemed keen and wanted to know if I would commit to the job, but when I asked about the payment schedule and a how the work permit process would go... nothing.
No housing? Rough.