Caledonian School Review by lisa, February 12, 2010

You probably chose Caledonian School because of their job guarantee. However, Caledonian School in Prague should be avoided for the following reasons:

1. THEY LIE ON THE WEBSITE ABOUT THE AMOUNT OF MONEY YOU WILL MAKE: They claim that you will earn between 15,000czk and 20,000czk per month on their website. However, given the rate of pay (178czk per teaching hour, which they don’t tell you until you get to Prague), it is actually impossible to even earn 15,000, the low end, with the 20 teaching hours they guarantee you. In addition, they do not protect you against student cancellations, so if your students cancel, and they often do, you are left with much less. For example, a teacher I knew worked over 30 teaching hours a week and ended up with an average of only 13,000czk at the end of each month, which is much less than people working the register at Tesco make and is simply not a living wage. This is disgraceful considering that some companies pay 1,000czk for a 90 minute lesson.

2. THEY DO NOT HONOR THEIR CONTRACTS: Recently they decided to cut their teacher’s pay by 5% and cancel the yearly bonus of 2% pay increase. They got around the legally binding contracts with their employees by essentially forcing teachers, who rely on them for visas and live paycheck to paycheck, to sign a new contract.

3. THEY LIE ABOUT THE NUMBER OF HOURS YOU WILL BE TEACHING: The truth is that though you only work 20 “teaching hours”, you will be running all over the city without being paid for it. In truth you will be working more than full time because you will have to travel an average of 45 minutes to an hour between each lesson. Many of your lessons will begin before 8am and end well after 5pm, plus travel time.

5: THEY LIE ABOUT VISA SUPPORT: They bring people from abroad to the Czech Republic, often through the TEFL program, offering a promise of visa support. However, it is illegal to enter the Czech Republic on a tourist visa and then apply for a work visa. You must apply from your home country. They get around this by paying off the foreign police or getting people they know at the embassy to bend the rules. The problem with this is that it’s not 100% effective, and every so often a whole group of people applying for their visas are sent home under threat of deportation when their 3 month tourist stay runs out. These unlucky teachers have the additional joy of potentially being banned from Europe for 3 years for overstaying their visas and working illegally.

6. THEY LIE ABOUT HEALTH INSURANCE: They are required by law to provide you with health insurance. They promise that they provide it as a part of their benefits package. However, what they call “insurance” is a system of repayment where you must pay for your medical expenses out of your own pocket and hope that the school will pay you back. This “insurance” does not include dental, ongoing conditions, or preventative care. Plus, you can only go to one remote hospital’s emergency room. As the law requires you to have real insurance, you must show proof of it when you apply for your visa. Again, Caledonian finds people who will bend the rules for them, which doesn’t always work.

7. THEY USE A LOOPHOLE IN THE LAW TO DEPRIVE YOU OF BENEFITS: They are registered as a UK company, which means that they can get around giving you the benefits that all people in the Czech Republic enjoy by law, like holiday time and benefit credits for meals, etc.

I’ve never spoken to a happy teacher at Caledonian School. In Prague they have a reputation for being the worst school to work for. Most teachers leave within the first year, which is in the school’s best interest, since they make so much money off of their TEFL course owing to the job guarantee. This is unfortunate because the TEFL certificate that you receive from Caledonian is not as well respected as most other programs (i.e. CELTA).

If you are coming to Prague to teach or to take a TEFL course, please research other schools. There are better options.