4 Weeks to Go

4 weeks to the end of school here, and 9 weeks before new teachers arrive in Jakarta!

We have had some feedback re problems with info from Asian Tigers our nominated shipper. This week Ivan and I met with Bill the Operations Manager here in Jakarta, and identified and sorted out the procedural and communications issues that were causing the hold ups. Should be no difficulties going forward form here. If you have any concerns re shipping, or your local Asian Tigers rep, can’t answer your questions, please contact Ivan ivan_setiawan@swa-jkt.com cs John john_mcbryde@swa-jkt.com. 

A reminder that your shipment cannot arrive before your KITAS (stay visa) and Work Permit are finalised usually 6 weeks after arrival. During that time, you will not be able to leave Indonesia. With a KITAS, the government allows your shipment to be considered a personal shipment exempt of customs fees. This only applies for shipments up to 3 months after your KITAS is issued, so generally shipment must arrive between 6 weeks after you arrive and 3 months after that, or customs fees will apply.

Bruce still has one house that will become vacant from one of our leaving teachers, if you would like to explore, please contact Bruce bruce_ashton@swa-jkt.com

Martin our IT Director has been in contact with each of our new teachers to provide you with your new SWA or JWA email accounts, including password information. These accounts are now active. If you didn’t get the email or have any queries, contact Martin at martin_leicht@swa-jkt.com. You will receive your laptop on Monday the 25 July.

Moving and setting up house does require watching your budget. A reminder that your first pay (half month July) gets paid to you on 26 July, shortly after you arrive. This will be paid in cash. After you arrive in Jakarta, you will be able to set up a Rupiah bank account during the New Teacher Orientation Week, and school will assist in this. You can not establish a USD account until after your KITAS has been finalized, and so you may still not have a USD account for the 26 August payroll. In this case you can nominate your salary to be paid into your Rupiah account, or be paid in USD cash in August. Newly arriving teachers usually have a need to spend money in the first month  setting up their housing – this varies greatly on personal needs, and whether the house is fully furnished or not. Even if fully furnished, general common start up items include – water dispensers, cable TV, home internet, linen and cooking and dining utensils, groceries, hiring a maid, ( and maybe buying a TV), so you need to consider this in organizing your arrival expenses and add a bit more for all the things you couldn’t predict! A guide to costs is included in the New Teachers Guide. If you have other specific questions, post a question in the Ning, or drop John, Bruce, Heidi or Paul a line.

Mobile phones are a real must for day to day life, and are a great life line for newly arrived teachers. Pre-paid SIM cards are readily available and school will assist in helping teachers get connected with a SIM on Monday 25 July

Health Insurance will become active from 16 July. Details on the policy will be advised mid June. At the same time the cost of adding non-contracted dependants will become available. If you are considering adding a dependent to the schools health policy, please advise Ivan asap, including names, age, gender, nationality. This is just fyi at this stage.

New teachers may request school to pre-pay costs such as housing above allowance and health and visa costs for non contracted dependants. A Request for School to Pre-pay and Authorization to Deduct from salary, if appropriate needs to be signed and submitted to Ivan before the school can commit to pre-payments. Forms are available through Ivan

That’s about it for now, hope end of the year, including reports, end of school activities and those all to important farewell parties are all going well at your end, and remember to drop us a line if you have any questions or issues. If we don’t get back, apologies, maybe we are swamped and need a gentle reminder – you know how it is! :-)

Best wishes

John