International schools are unregulated which is why it is technically illegal for Japanese citizens to send their children to them. If the school doesn’t have IBDP or endorsement from a foreign embassy, they are a scam.
Because people keep taking the job at that rate.
Sadly this is why I dont live in Japan anymore
Man I make nearly double that in the states as a teacher and I thought I was underpaid.
I’d love to live in Japan to teach, but I literally make four times this amount in China. I’d rather just ride it out here for a decade or two and continue saving/investing and then just retire in Japan. That rate is ludicrous.
It’s called a race to the bottom
Because care workers are mostly women.
I know people on here like to believe that English teachers are just underpaid because they’re English teachers, but licensed hoikushi make this kind of salary (often less). Congratulations, you have entered a female dominated field. The pay isn’t going to compare to male dominated ones.
To give another perspective (I teach in an international school with a reasonably low salary), many of the schools are working in very tight budgets and the ones that aren’t the big three/four can’t attract students if they charge extortionate fees which would be required to pay their teachers. Many of the kids we have don’t have their fees paid for by a big company but by individuals. It’s a fine balance.
It’s something I’ve highlighted in the strategic plan at my school because turn over is high as people come and experience Japan for a couple of years, realise they’re not going to save any money, and move onto more lucrative spots in Asia.
It may be the school can literally just not afford to offer more with the number and types of kids they have.
It’s not a real international school. Just in name. It’s an eikaiwa so you’re making eikaiwa rates. The listing should need a real teaching license from your home country if it was legit.
“Teachers and staff are carefully selected from a global pool of experts who work passionately to provide opportunities for students to learn and grow into independent global citizens.”
This isn’t limited to English teaching though. My wife (Japanese) and my Japanese friends go with the running joke that all job ads look like this (at least in my inaka-ish area)
Requirements: English (fluent) Japanese (fluent) Bachelor’s degree (master’s preferred) 5 years+ experience ___ certificate required
Benefits: 200,000/month No shakai hoken No transportation No bonus Required overtime
That is not quite starvation salary level but close. I could understand this if housing was included, which it is not. I don’t see that a university degree is required. This school is somewhat of a scam. I sent my boys to St. Mary’s Intl School. Super expensive and later a pedo scandal was unearthed. Because it was a Catholic school some teachers were recruited in the US for their sport coaching skills rather than for their teaching acumen. I’ve had enough of International Schools…at least in Japan. Sheesh.
I said it before and I will say it again.
I once saw a programmer position that required native level fluency in Japanese, English and Chinese with at least two years programming experience for around 250,000 JPY per month.
Crazy how low some companies will pay for yet ask for so much.
If those are the only 4 requirements, it’s not a real international school.
Look at the teacher profiles. One guy got his bachelor’s degree in film studies *and that’s it*.
Good god that’s a joke. Amazing how they expect someone to be fluent in one of the hardest languages in the world and pay them that. What an insult
Manga and Anime nerds with rich parents will do it for a year or two
I would imagine this isn’t a true international school, and I sincerely doubt the job entails anything more difficult than playing with kids. Otherwise, they would be looking for someone who has experience and qualifications.
A legitimate, genuine international school would never ever post on Gaijinpot
Head teacher in the UK is a management role, so this must means senior teacher. ie, you train the other staff while doing your job. Joke wage even for outside Tokyo, also kind of telling that they can’t even get their job name right. Treat this as a sign and walk on.
We’re foreigners, and they will always exploit us.
Desparate weebs justify it by applying for positions like this and just taking it. They line up for it, in fact.
– a real international school requires professional paperwork – many eikaiwa have “international school” as a tagline to mean they have international or English speaking staff – for such a low salary the staff might be small so “head teacher” might mean you’ll be the only “teacher and you’ll have assistant staff. Or you might be the only real staff. Sometimes it just means you’ll be the one making the materials for that particular group. – actual international schools require specific experiences for head teacher positions since you’d be leading a team / division. This posting is just a title for the sake of pleasing customers.
Oh and to answer your question… because it’s an English school for youngsters, not a $$$ international school teaching IB subjects to wealthy foreign kids.
This might be a dumb question but is this really considered low salary in Japan? I have friends who work and say the average pay is ¥160,000-¥180,000. Is this position one that typically pays more?
Supply and demand
I make almost double that as a T1 in a private junior high school and get bonuses too… and still I think my salary is low… this is slave wages
Man, it must really suck to live in another country and be paid wages that do not reflect your hard work and skill level just because you are an immigrant in a society that is used to abusing a workforce with few rights or bargaining power.
Welcome to the wonderful world of education
With Japanese fluency to boot.. goodness gracious.
The pay situation in Japan is absurd. I think it’s really interesting to juxtapose it to the pay for foreigners in China. I’m living in Japan now but moving back to China in a few weeks. Wayyyy more foreigners want to go to Japan than China and it shows in the pay. Me and my friends always talk about how nice “foreigner salary” is there because a lot of foreigners gets paid a premium (mostly English speakers). The average lower wage work for foreigners in China is around (exchanged to yen) is ¥200k to ¥400k, and that’s just things like translators and usually above that for teachers. When I was in high school in Beijing with 0 teaching experience, I was tutoring English under the table for about ¥3-4k/hour.
The money goes way farther too. A subway ride is about ¥40, average rent is about ¥110k (BJ), a meal is like ¥400, a haircut is ¥2k…
I feel so bad for people trying to find a job in Japan because the pay seems straight up cruel.
EDIT: not to mention working at an international school, in China the minimum would usually be around ¥600k a month and a higher ranking teacher or principal would be ¥1m a month… stay safe out there guys
Japan
[This](https://i.postimg.cc/VvC6nTDQ/Capture.png) is the worst I’ve ever seen. I just *had* to save an image of it on my HD. Glad I finally have a reason to show it off.
Anyone see one worse out in the wild?
You think that’s bad you should come to Arizona where instead of increasing pay to attract qualified teachers to the state they just hire Indians and Filipinos at dirt cheap wages that also come with the added bonus of them maintaining employment is a requirement to keep their green card so essentially indentured servitude.
Best part is that those foreign teachers are always hired for English or math positions and their English is so heavily accented that the kids can’t understand them so they are doomed to fail from the start
This is pre-tax right… and for a Head position? 😵 So after deductions they will be on what, 200k? Breadline stuff!
at this rate we all might as well go to sleep with the gas on. what’s the point anymore
Fluent Japanese and certified teacher? Hell no. I’m holding out for sure.
Teacher salary literally vary so hard in Japan. 180-335k I had no experience at all and started as a teacher with 330k a month while literally zero Japanese yet .
Because fuck you that’s why
Read “international school” as “bubble-era couple who wanted a business to retire with.”
Virtually every one of them in my area is a scam and barely a school at all.
I’m a STEM teacher from K3 to K7 in Vietnam, bilingual, BS from the US, and written my own curriculum based on the standard. My school pays me $420/ month and they said that’s the highest pay rate for a Vietnamese 🥲 I call bullshit. Wanna get a Master and move away.
Yes the wages are low over there and elsewhere in education.
Check to see any bonus (usually twice a year) is mentioned. Japanese corporations like ti keep the salary low and give out a bonus since it is easy to justify fluctuations in amount.
LOL, mom and pops want to pay peanuts to get a head teacher. Hilarious. They will eventually luck out on the unemployed fluent speaking gaijin married to a Japanese wife living in her parents house. Because of that, whoever takes the job will ruin it for the rest of us. Head teacher at an international school should be 460,000 minimum. If in the Tokyo area, should be 550,000.
43 comments
International schools are unregulated which is why it is technically illegal for Japanese citizens to send their children to them. If the school doesn’t have IBDP or endorsement from a foreign embassy, they are a scam.
Because people keep taking the job at that rate.
Sadly this is why I dont live in Japan anymore
Man I make nearly double that in the states as a teacher and I thought I was underpaid.
I’d love to live in Japan to teach, but I literally make four times this amount in China. I’d rather just ride it out here for a decade or two and continue saving/investing and then just retire in Japan. That rate is ludicrous.
It’s called a race to the bottom
Because care workers are mostly women.
I know people on here like to believe that English teachers are just underpaid because they’re English teachers, but licensed hoikushi make this kind of salary (often less). Congratulations, you have entered a female dominated field. The pay isn’t going to compare to male dominated ones.
To give another perspective (I teach in an international school with a reasonably low salary), many of the schools are working in very tight budgets and the ones that aren’t the big three/four can’t attract students if they charge extortionate fees which would be required to pay their teachers. Many of the kids we have don’t have their fees paid for by a big company but by individuals. It’s a fine balance.
It’s something I’ve highlighted in the strategic plan at my school because turn over is high as people come and experience Japan for a couple of years, realise they’re not going to save any money, and move onto more lucrative spots in Asia.
It may be the school can literally just not afford to offer more with the number and types of kids they have.
It’s not a real international school. Just in name. It’s an eikaiwa so you’re making eikaiwa rates. The listing should need a real teaching license from your home country if it was legit.
From their [website](https://marie-is.com/primary-school):
“Teachers and staff are carefully selected from a global pool of experts who work passionately to provide opportunities for students to learn and grow into independent global citizens.”
This isn’t limited to English teaching though.
My wife (Japanese) and my Japanese friends go with the running joke that all job ads look like this (at least in my inaka-ish area)
Requirements: English (fluent)
Japanese (fluent)
Bachelor’s degree (master’s preferred)
5 years+ experience
___ certificate required
Benefits: 200,000/month
No shakai hoken
No transportation
No bonus
Required overtime
That is not quite starvation salary level but close. I could understand this if housing was included, which it is not. I don’t see that a university degree is required. This school is somewhat of a scam. I sent my boys to St. Mary’s Intl School. Super expensive and later a pedo scandal was unearthed. Because it was a Catholic school some teachers were recruited in the US for their sport coaching skills rather than for their teaching acumen. I’ve had enough of International Schools…at least in Japan. Sheesh.
I said it before and I will say it again.
I once saw a programmer position that required native level fluency in Japanese, English and Chinese with at least two years programming experience for around 250,000 JPY per month.
Crazy how low some companies will pay for yet ask for so much.
If those are the only 4 requirements, it’s not a real international school.
Look at the teacher profiles. One guy got his bachelor’s degree in film studies *and that’s it*.
The Marie International school teachers profiles.
https://marie-is.com/teachers
Good god that’s a joke. Amazing how they expect someone to be fluent in one of the hardest languages in the world and pay them that. What an insult
Manga and Anime nerds with rich parents will do it for a year or two
I would imagine this isn’t a true international school, and I sincerely doubt the job entails anything more difficult than playing with kids. Otherwise, they would be looking for someone who has experience and qualifications.
A legitimate, genuine international school would never ever post on Gaijinpot
Head teacher in the UK is a management role, so this must means senior teacher. ie, you train the other staff while doing your job.
Joke wage even for outside Tokyo, also kind of telling that they can’t even get their job name right. Treat this as a sign and walk on.
We’re foreigners, and they will always exploit us.
Desparate weebs justify it by applying for positions like this and just taking it. They line up for it, in fact.
– a real international school requires professional paperwork
– many eikaiwa have “international school” as a tagline to mean they have international or English speaking staff
– for such a low salary the staff might be small so “head teacher” might mean you’ll be the only “teacher and you’ll have assistant staff. Or you might be the only real staff. Sometimes it just means you’ll be the one making the materials for that particular group.
– actual international schools require specific experiences for head teacher positions since you’d be leading a team / division. This posting is just a title for the sake of pleasing customers.
Oh and to answer your question… because it’s an English school for youngsters, not a $$$ international school teaching IB subjects to wealthy foreign kids.
This might be a dumb question but is this really considered low salary in Japan? I have friends who work and say the average pay is ¥160,000-¥180,000. Is this position one that typically pays more?
Supply and demand
I make almost double that as a T1 in a private junior high school and get bonuses too… and still I think my salary is low… this is slave wages
Man, it must really suck to live in another country and be paid wages that do not reflect your hard work and skill level just because you are an immigrant in a society that is used to abusing a workforce with few rights or bargaining power.
Welcome to the wonderful world of education
With Japanese fluency to boot.. goodness gracious.
The pay situation in Japan is absurd. I think it’s really interesting to juxtapose it to the pay for foreigners in China. I’m living in Japan now but moving back to China in a few weeks. Wayyyy more foreigners want to go to Japan than China and it shows in the pay. Me and my friends always talk about how nice “foreigner salary” is there because a lot of foreigners gets paid a premium (mostly English speakers). The average lower wage work for foreigners in China is around (exchanged to yen) is ¥200k to ¥400k, and that’s just things like translators and usually above that for teachers. When I was in high school in Beijing with 0 teaching experience, I was tutoring English under the table for about ¥3-4k/hour.
The money goes way farther too. A subway ride is about ¥40, average rent is about ¥110k (BJ), a meal is like ¥400, a haircut is ¥2k…
I feel so bad for people trying to find a job in Japan because the pay seems straight up cruel.
EDIT: not to mention working at an international school, in China the minimum would usually be around ¥600k a month and a higher ranking teacher or principal would be ¥1m a month… stay safe out there guys
Japan
[This](https://i.postimg.cc/VvC6nTDQ/Capture.png) is the worst I’ve ever seen. I just *had* to save an image of it on my HD. Glad I finally have a reason to show it off.
Anyone see one worse out in the wild?
You think that’s bad you should come to Arizona where instead of increasing pay to attract qualified teachers to the state they just hire Indians and Filipinos at dirt cheap wages that also come with the added bonus of them maintaining employment is a requirement to keep their green card so essentially indentured servitude.
Best part is that those foreign teachers are always hired for English or math positions and their English is so heavily accented that the kids can’t understand them so they are doomed to fail from the start
This is pre-tax right… and for a Head position? 😵 So after deductions they will be on what, 200k? Breadline stuff!
at this rate we all might as well go to sleep with the gas on. what’s the point anymore
Fluent Japanese and certified teacher? Hell no. I’m holding out for sure.
Teacher salary literally vary so hard in Japan. 180-335k
I had no experience at all and started as a teacher with 330k a month while literally zero Japanese yet .
Because fuck you that’s why
Read “international school” as “bubble-era couple who wanted a business to retire with.”
Virtually every one of them in my area is a scam and barely a school at all.
I’m a STEM teacher from K3 to K7 in Vietnam, bilingual, BS from the US, and written my own curriculum based on the standard. My school pays me $420/ month and they said that’s the highest pay rate for a Vietnamese 🥲 I call bullshit. Wanna get a Master and move away.
Yes the wages are low over there and elsewhere in education.
Check to see any bonus (usually twice a year) is mentioned. Japanese corporations like ti keep the salary low and give out a bonus since it is easy to justify fluctuations in amount.
LOL, mom and pops want to pay peanuts to get a head teacher. Hilarious. They will eventually luck out on the unemployed fluent speaking gaijin married to a Japanese wife living in her parents house. Because of that, whoever takes the job will ruin it for the rest of us. Head teacher at an international school should be 460,000 minimum. If in the Tokyo area, should be 550,000.