Taylor's Interrnational School, Puchong

New school new staff new management. You won't want to pay hands and legs to place your son/daughter there as  guinea pig. School management team does take time to settle and to form their own school culture. so it is wiser to wait for another 2 years or more before considering this school. 

I had a look at their staff page http://www.pc.tis.edu.my/about-us/staff-team  the initial thought is great but very soon you will notice it only shows all the heads of department, no mention of ordinary teachers though. Based on the current school fee structure, it is unlikely the school will hire more foreigner & qualified teachers. My concern about local teacher is that they were trained very differently, they might be used to rote method, not sure how the head of department can change their way of teaching.

samsam123 wrote:

New school new staff new management. You won't want to pay hands and legs to place your son/daughter there as  guinea pig. School management team does take time to settle and to form their own school culture. so it is wiser to wait for another 2 years or more before considering this school. 

I had a look at their staff page http://www.pc.tis.edu.my/about-us/staff-team  the initial thought is great but very soon you will notice it only shows all the heads of department, no mention of ordinary teachers though. Based on the current school fee structure, it is unlikely the school will hire more foreigner & qualified teachers. My concern about local teacher is that they were trained very differently, they might be used to rote method, not sure how the head of department can change their way of teaching.

Yes agree and most likely all the majority of other teachers will be Malaysian without any teacher training. Some schools pay as low a RM 1,600 a month the same as a secretary or someone at McDonalds. Do the math on the quality of effort/interest from those employed. Usually school like this have 20% expats usually as heads of departments and they are used in photographs a lot. You really need at least 50% expat staff to have the critical mass required and pay decent salaries to the local staff; with many of them experienced with good experience and exam records.  That combinatio works well. What doesn't work is hiring a thin veneer of expat staff who are often unqualified as well (many do this trick) usually European as they can be employed at half the cost or less of a qualified teacher.

What Taylors will do with the Puchong school I don't know. But I suspect the 20% "white veneer" plus McDonalds salary model that is so popular in Malaysia as it is in Puchong and they need to keep fees low.

It may seem at first that the best international schools should be the ones with more expat teachers (usually white). But when I put some deep thought into it, I realise it is not the case.

For example, there are 14000 state primary schools and 2500 secondary schools in England. Their teachers are all qualified (either NQT / QTS). However, among these schools there may only be 10% rated as outstanding by relevant authority (Ofsted), the rest might be average or even very poor to the extent that they urgently require attention from their local councils. The same phenomenon happens in other developed white majority nations too. So it means qualified teachers may not necessary be good. (You may argue that unqualified teachers might be worse, that might be true too).

Next, based on the TIMSS and PISA league tables, the nations that come top are the Asian (Singapore, Taiwan, Hongkong...) and European countries (Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands, Finland...). It is ironic that none of them are the English native speaking countries (UK, USA, etc). mmm... why are we still so obsessed with the idea that international school with more western English speaking expat staff is better???

My point is no school is perfect. Instead of focusing on number of expat staff, I think as parents we should be more diligent. Make sure the tuition fee is reasonable and affordable. Spend time get to know the headmaster, find out his/her belief in education. Look at the teachers' background and school's past year results (if available). Check out the after school extra curricular activities. Talk to other parents, etc. In short, I believe we should follow our instinct and pick the school that makes us feel comfortable.