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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Murder at IH Kuala Lumpur

Threats of murder at IH Kuala Lumpur. Complaints have been received and the offensive comment has been removed from the "nominate a school for blacklisting" section. Thanks to the readers who tipped the Inspector off. Complaints against a school are one thing. Threats of murder are quite different.

The main IH post can be found by clicking here: International House

Inspector McHammered of the Lard in Val Ferret, Switzerland

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am certainly taking action against this offensive, disgusting and utter preposterous post. Would you like to read about someone you love being maligned as having affairs with two colleagues. Women can have friendships with men. Why do some narrow minded, evil person(s)automatically think that something is going on. I wonder if this person's mother knows what he's written. This is not the last of this.

Anonymous said...

yeah, ok complaints against a school are one thing. What about irresponsible slandering of teachers and mentioning their names. Seems to me that it's okay by you to allow foul mouths to slander individuals without the slighest evidence. How can you allow that? I question your credibility to allow such hurtful and possibly damaging comments on an individual's character. Please let common sense prevail. You have complaints against an organization okay we all get pissed off but character assassination is just not on.

Inspector Mchammered of the Lard said...

How can you allow that?
What an astonishing outburst! I thought I "hadn't allowed that" and removed the post instantly once I received your comments. Is there something I have missed? Pray enlighten me. I don't have a clue who posted it but you probably do. In fact one of the posters categorically states that they know who the culprit was.
I really couldn't care less who supposedly shagged who. It has no place on the TEFL-Blacklist which was why I removed the posting.
The Inspector is however interested in International House Kuala Lumpur. It seems to attract an awful lot of bad press.

Anonymous said...

I think you were dropped in the gully there McHammered...appreciate the removal of the comment. As to the discussion of IH KL it cannot in any way be divorced from discussion about the uni main, the affiliate owner. To do that is a new innings. If not you are back to Barnabus Butterbalf who could be seen as Timmy Trundle rather than Fiery Fred.

Inspector Mchammered of the Lard said...

Here is the Barnabus Butterbalf posting referrred to above.

You can read the full IH thread in the UK section or click on a link I've added in the posting.


Barnabus Butterbalf said...
"I worked with IH affiliates (yes, they are affiliates not franchises) for 9 years. In total I was employed at 7 IH affiliates.
I came across a couple of good centres, a couple of mediocre ones and some utterly appalling ones.
The general feeling I got was that IH was in decline, moral and managerial decline. When I first started working at an IH affiliate there were structured points within the affiliation agreement which gave the teacher a fair deal. One such example was the minimum annual leave entitlement. However, with the now not so new director taking over (that's the affable Mr Carrier, of course), these points were either watered down or dropped all together. Thus you now have IH affiliates such as Kuala Lumpur offering only 18 days annual leave a year and making the teacher work 5 and a half days a week for a pathetic local salary which is laughed at even by local Malaysians.
The reasons for this were soon clear to anyone prepared to do the tiniest amount of research. Firstly, IH wants affiliation money. It is a business after all and a greedy one at that, so it has been encouraging expansion through taking on board centres with woefully poor and exploitative conditions. These centres were not keen on improving their conditions, especially when they had just started paying a rather sizeable affiliation fee (a huge fee for some economies), so the IH directorate gave the nod to allow them to establish whatever conditions and teaching contracts they liked.
Another important and often overlooked situation concerns the inner managerial decision makers. Who are they exactly? Well, we have the director of IH San Sebastian who just happens to preside over the most notorious IH affiliate in Spain with 6 day working weeks and low salaries for teachers living in one of the most expensive cities in Spain. Lovely chap though Mr Lcunza is, especially when he has just had dinner with his bank manager. Ah yes, there is also the director of IH Mexico City, the place where teachers are crying poverty. Yes, these and others like them are the people making all the affiliation decisions in the IH world.
So, from personal experience of certain IH centres I worked at what can I say? Of the good centres we can count in some of the affiliates in Southern Poland. These affiliates would be good places for the first time teacher to spend a year with. Their in-house training is very good indeed, although the salaries they offer, although adequate to live on, are below the market rate. So any teacher shouldn't bother with them for more than a year. Another very good IH affiliate I taught with for 2 years has now disaffiliated. It did this owing to the IH name losing credibility, the watering down of the agreement, and, more precisely because IH allowed the establishment of other new IH affiliates in the same city. These new affiliates were serious competition and offered both the teacher and the student a far inferior quality in terms of remuneration for the teacher and facilities for the student. This particular IH affiliate had worked very hard for years to build up the IH name to be well-recognised and highly thought of in its city. But with the arrival of the new affiliates the quality and reputation dropped rapidly and student numbers dropped owing to new competition and a reduced confidence, the only way forward was to disaffiliate and start again under its own name.
I won't mention the mediocre affiliates I worked at, but will merely mention the name of one which appears all over the net as being one of the worst schools in existence ( I mean anywhere, not just IH. It epitomises everything that is wrong with IH: International House Kuala Lumpur - just do a google search, and while you're at it, look out for a picture of the debonair Tan Sri Lim Kok Wing (Warning: do not do this while eating)
I could go on and give pages of details about my experience as a teacher and Director of Studies with the IH affiliates I have worked at, but I'd prefer to save them for the moment, in the belief that when I turn them into a bestseller, I'll recoup some of the cash that IH exploited me and countless others for.................

Inspector Mchammered of the Lard said...

The following relevant comment has just been left on the International House section
International house KL needs to be closed.

imagine being told lies everyday by a bunch of people who just want to suck you dry of every single penny - this is cry of its students

ih has sold out itself. despite hearing fantastic reviews of IH Poland and some others, IH KL is indeed run by idiot malaysians and Elizabeth who is more a tea lady rather than a manager.

Students are complaining of poor standards. teachers who dont have 1st degrees and teaching certs are allowed to teach. working hours suck. no intelligent training whatsoever. One bad attempt was once carried out by Naziha and the topic was ice-breakers. it well amused the locals who cant seem to do anything correct, but all foreign teachers were just laughing themselves silly. malaysians who cant speak English are teaching, hence the rubbish standards. students complain day after day. rude local staff are being hired. they bitch on just about everything but dont seem to speaking out when asked by management, guess this is the nature of such asians.

If 10 teachers have left in the past 11 or so months from what ive heard, dont you think this place is just crap?

its proven.....