Topic: Pan Aisa International School

[brian_q]

They are advertising some fairly decent jobs in ajarn.com. Their website looks good and says all the right things. Does anyone have experience with these folks?


Thanks.

[sir mouse burgher]

Don't bother buddy, as an English speaker you are a minority it is an Islamic based school managed by an indian and expects far too much from the staff .
I worked there but left .

If your Phillipino,Indian,Turkish you are in  :dancing:about 7 native English speakers out of a staff of about 50.

International school it is not

keep clear.  

[Ronaldo]

Have to agree with Sir Mouse,

This is not an international school, it is not affliated to any recognised international body... Just a wannabe in the middle of the boonies with some real no hopers in charge dominated by an Indian of dubious character.

If you want a miserable life, work at this school.

[sabai_sabai]

Sadly, I have to agree with most of what the other posters have written that are saying stay clear of this place.  You will not get the supplies or support you need from the admin at Pan Asia.  They have also had some financial problems in the past which has delayed some teachers in getting paid.

It's really a shame because the mission of the school is very admirable.  They are not after profit and want to give Thais, Thai Muslims and others a cheap international (-like) education and foster a better understanding between cultures.  Part of the problem is that some of the administration are lazy and a few really care but don't have much of a clue about running a school.  Getting anything done is a headache and they have a very high turnover.

[brian_q]

Thank you everyone... scratch that one.

Brian

[certified]

Here are some more insights into the school. It is a school that is in part financed through donations, charity, and certain business people who come from Jordan. The Muslims at the schoolwho are Middle Eastern and South East Asian origins are very sincere and good people. They are honest and treat you, whoever you are with great respect. The school itself has an atmosphere that children generally enjoy.It has a wonderful play ground with new equipment , and good supervision from the staff. The Director is really a nice guy, not a mean bone in his body. He is both personable and charming to his staff. I guess you could say he's a type b personality. The lunch at the school is super. It's a little different than Thai lunches but, the meal is always good and you get to get 2nd and 3rds. It usually consists of soup and a salad, with 3 or 4 other entrees like chicken. On Fridays they serve steaks sometimes,,,no kidding. They also have excellent bakery goods at lunch time and on breaks, and after school. They have a huge air conditioned gym, and there is a little room where you turn the lights on and off, incidently this is where the teachers smoke. The teacher's office is good with nice desks. Class rooms are standard size, with air and white boards. The support staff is excellent and nice to work with. The maids are all Thai Muslim girls, and they are really cute and charming to have around. In fact when you consider all the different working circumstances in Thailand, this place has many high marks to it. So if it has so much going for it, why doesn't it show any growing  degree of success? What has chased parents away and caused the school to have financial problems. What do western teachers find unbearable where they are either fired or forced out?
There is an Indian man who was hired by the school 2 years ago, originally from  Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. He says he had a computer job in India. He was  hired at the school as the computer teacher, but apparently had talked himself into a position as a head teacher.
There were no job details as the head teacher at Pan Asia, so this individual made up his own
practices with no formal experience in education, and certainly not in western education. The director counts on this mans alleged expertise to shape things up in the school, but unfortunately he exhibits some of the worst behavior I have ever witnessed in a school. He will actually begin a campaign to oust a good qualified teacher simply because his stature is threatened when compared to a real professional. His methods are slimy and without remorse. You will be subjected to this individual attemting to ruin every important relationship you have in the school. He will spend an unusual amount of time brain washing the director and the principal. He berates western teachers at meetings on a personal level. He is argumentative and highly criticle of the teaching methods employed by western teachers who are more qualified and experienced than himself. In other words, if you are a white, western man, expect this person to use the school as a weapon anyway he can against you. And he will not sleep until the job is done. This is what ruins it for everyone at the school. He wants everyone to be afraid of him, and in effect he is the school bully. The director at Pan Asia will sooner or later wake up to what this person is really creating for the school and make the right decision for the children's sake.

[Ronaldo]

Certified...

You are absolutely correct and in this case one bad apple does spoil the batch, as you say the school has a lot going for it, but it is the parents through their children I believe that have worked out this awful 'bully boy' character and therefore declined to place or to continue to place their children there, hence a falling roll of students.

Unfortunately, the ever trusting, nice and rather naive director and some of his senior staff have not worked this out and until they do the school will suffer, and probably decline even further.

[Dalit]

I went because of the indian manager and he is one of my own all that is said is on target.

He should be a chitty wallah

School boss good man indian man not true man

[rebuttal]

While is true that Pan-Asia International School (PAIS) has had its share of difficulties since its inception in 2004, the characterization of the school as a backwards, dysfunctional hellhole dominated by a tyrannical, vindictive academic director is so far off base, it is almost comical. Almost. Unfortunately, the above posts are riddled with factual inaccuracies, ad hominem attacks, and bluntly libelous statements to which I will hereby reply.

PAIS is a young, growing international school that provides an American-curriculum-based education at affordable tuitions. The school’s administration, including the board of directors, the chairman, and the academic director, is passionate about delivering a high quality education to all students, but particularly to students who might not otherwise have such an opportunity. While it is not technically an Islamic school, the majority of the students are Muslim and are allowed to freely practice their religion on campus via the school mosque. However, respect for all religions, ethnicities, and nationalities is the norm, and the school leaders are actively developing the diversity of the student body and the school staff to further promote this ideal.

I have been with the school 2 ½ years. In that time PAIS has worked out many of the operational, human resource, and curriculum-related kinks that have diminished its overall performance. The improvement and growth of the school over this period of time has been phenomenal. Despite this, the school is still experiencing growing pains, sometimes considerable. While inevitable stumbling blocks exist, I have a firm belief that at any given time the school leaders are doing their utmost to remediate the school’s short-term difficulties towards long-term successes. Such an environment is not for everyone. Unfortunately, employees who could not accommodate or work within this sometimes unstable and challenging environment either quit or were let go. These employees’ sour grapes have evidently found their way to this forum. So be it.

The personal opinions and negative attitudes towards the school expressed by the posters on this thread are not refutable due to their very nature. My purpose here is not to joust with the negativity of clearly disgruntled former employees. However, some of the factually inaccurate statements presented do require correction. These are as follows:

1) PAIS is an international school in every sense of the term. The curriculum is based upon the Massachusetts state standards and is taught in English. The bulk of the textbooks and other learning materials come from American educational publishing companies such as Harcourt-Brace, Macmillan, McGraw-Hill, and Scholastic. We have students from 24 different countries. We have teachers from at least 10 different countries. All of our students are bilingual, and many are trilingual. PAIS is legally licensed as an international school by the Thai government.  International school PAIS is.

2) PAIS is currently in the process of obtaining full WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges, USA) accreditation. WASC officials have visited the school twice, all necessary paperwork for accreditation has been submitted, and PAIS has been approved for provisional WASC accreditation. Full WASC accreditation is expected to be achieved within the next 3 to 5 years.

3) The PAIS student body continues to grow on a year-by-year basis. Each year a new grade is added. Next year the school will hold classes for students from preschool to grade 8. We do have student turnover at the school, which is to be expected. Many of our students’ parents are involved in international business or are foreign diplomatic staff, thus they periodically move from one country to the next according to the demands of their jobs. Other students have left PAIS for a variety of reasons, as is the case with any school. A small minority of students have left because of parents dissatisfied with the school’s performance. As any professional educator knows, some parents are impossible to satisfy. That’s life.

4) PAIS is financially secure. Operations and expenses are sufficiently covered by tuition and generous outside grants. Any difficulties in timely payment of salaries have been due to accounting snafus only, either at the school or at the school’s bank. There have been very few instances of this happening (less than 5) during my tenure here. Problems with salary payments have always been resolved in a timely manner. The school has never failed to pay an employee. In fact, the school has several times offered financial aid to employees who needed emergency funds and also has offered generous severance pay to teachers whose contracts have not been renewed.

4) Yearly employee turnover is dropping substantially as hiring practices improve and the overall satisfaction of the school’s qualified, professional teachers increases. The majority of teachers currently working at the school have been offered new contracts for the coming school year.

5) The academic director of PAIS (i.e. head teacher) is indeed Indian. How this fact has any bearing on his qualifications, abilities, or skills is beyond me, other than the racist overtones of the other posters. Prior to his position at PAIS, he was the head of the English department at a bilingual school in Bangkok for 3 1/2 years. He is now studying for his M.Ed. He is a busy, skillful, and effective administrator. The only employees who fail to get along with him are those who fail to perform their jobs professionally.
   
All schools have positives and negatives (and all jobs, as far as my experience is concerned . . . ). My simple advice for anyone reading these negative posts regarding PAIS is to take them with a huge grain of salt. If you have any doubts about whether PAIS is a good place to work and grow professionally, then visit us and talk to the teachers who are happily employed here. Inspect the school. Talk to the school leaders and students. Don’t make a decision based upon a few gripes on an internet forum. Instead, make an intelligent decision based upon your own firsthand experiences.

[certified]

Nice try XXXX. We know who butters your bread.
Let this man who just happens to be an Indian, answer these questions himself.

[Ronaldo]

Nice to see Sean that you are still kissing arse as per usual

It is not racist to say that your headmaster is Indian because he is and he is also as described by posters who have given their posts as requested by the original poster, more to the point he is pulling the wool over the managements eyes and the school turnover of staff and students is affected by his management style, clearly this is a demerit.

You know as well as anyone that this is an Islamic school dressed up like a Christmas turkey and that infact even what you say at morning assembly is often vetted for content other than the party line, this type of thinking is rife in the school and it untrue to say otherwise.

1) Your school texts are out of date and have to be cropped to rid itself of any Americanism or Christian value system. PAIS is not legally licensed as an international school by the Thai government, it is only recognised as such when it has achieved WASC full status and not until then, International school PAIS isn't.


2) PAIS is currently in the process of obtaining full WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges, USA) accreditation. WASC officials have visited the school twice, all necessary paperwork for accreditation has been submitted, and PAIS has been approved for provisional WASC accreditation. Full WASC accreditation is expected to be achieved within the next 3 to 5 years.

3) The PAIS student body does not continue to grow on a year-by-year basis, in fact it has fallen. Each year a new grade is added. Next year the school will hold classes for students from preschool to grade 8. We do have student turnover at the school, which is to be expected. Many of our students’ parents are involved in international business or are foreign diplomatic staff ha ha ha, thus they periodically move from one country to the next according to the demands of their jobs. Other students have left PAIS for a variety of reasons, as is the case with any school. A small minority of students have left because of parents dissatisfied with the school’s performance. As any professional educator knows, some parents are impossible to satisfy. That’s life.

4) PAIS is not financially secure. Operations and expenses are sufficiently covered by tuition and generous outside grants (from who? Muslim bodies know doubt but it isn't a muslim school Obi Won.
4) Yearly employee turnover is dropping substantially as hiring practices improve and the overall satisfaction of the school’s qualified, professional teachers increases (that's why you need so any new hires as advertised on Ajarn, pull the other one). The majority of teachers (the majority of what teachers) currently working at the school have been offered new contracts for the coming school year.

5) The academic director of PAIS (i.e. head teacher) is indeed Indian. How this fact has any bearing on his qualifications, abilities, or skills is beyond me, other than the racist overtones of the other posters. Prior to his position at PAIS, he was the head of the English department at a bilingual school in Bangkok for 3 1/2 years (and we know what happened there. He is now studying for his M.Ed. He is a busy, skillful, and effective administrator who pry's into people private lives. The only employees who fail to get along with him are those who fail to perform their jobs professionally, who says he does his job professionally, only you. He hasn't even got enough gumption to rebut himself, he has to get his pet to do it for him.   

All schools have positives and negatives (and all jobs, as far as my experience is concerned . . . and what experience does the ex-cook have ). My simple advice for anyone reading these negative posts regarding PAIS is to take them with a huge grain of salt or a huge load of BS loaded and spread on by you and your crony, you've been duped or is it you just love kissing butt. If you have any doubts about whether PAIS is a good place to work and grow professionally, then visit us and talk to the teachers who are happily employed here. Inspect the school. Talk to the school leaders and students. Don’t make a decision based upon a few gripes on an internet forum. Instead, make an intelligent decision based upon your own firsthand experiences.

Sean ' kiss butt' Snider
English Language Arts Curriculum Coordinator
Grade 7 ELA Teacher
Pan-Asia International School
Fantasy Island

[RobRoy]

Rebuttal...its good to see a school responding to complaints and letting teachers know they are welcome to come by and talk with the current employees and management to form their own opinions.  Many schools would never allow that to happen.

[certified]

Until now, the school's manager has operated with complete impunity to get slap happy with whoever he wants to. I invite you to answer your critics directly here, Mr. Manager. Don't be afraid, you of all people need to learn a lesson in life. This lesson is,,,Treat others the way you want to be treated. Even the youngest children understand this universal concept. Until you can master this simple way of life, you are not fit to have the honored title of, Teacher.

[RobRoy]

Maybe I missed something....did the manager get slap happy with you certified?  Did you see this first hand, so to speak?

[certified]

Rob, he knows who he roughed up.