Going to Astana

Sorry I missed this post. Hope my answers are still useful.

1. Are after school jobs (private teaching) allowed in Kazakhstan? 

I think you will find a lot of people asking you to tutor them individually. Don't be surprised if they are very pushy and want you to work from 6am to 10 pm every day including Sunday because having a native speaker as a teacher is a great opportunity for people.

Is it allowed by your school? Probably, they won't care. Most teachers get paid so little that they have to do something on the side anyway just to eat. Is it legal? Technically you should probably register as an individual enterprise or something, but I wouldn't worry about it.


2.What is the basic salary for English teachers?

In schools, local teachers get paid from $200-$500 a month. If you are a native speaker, I'd try to charge around 2000-5000 tenge an hour (~1.5-3 US dollars). The school may not be able to meet that unless they get parents to pay or something.

I worked in a high school for 20 hours a week and made around $1500 a month.That money came via special permission from the Ministry of Education!

3.Do they honor contracts?

Yes and no. You may not get paid on time. You will find them requesting more and more of you--in terms of time, paperwork, students. But in general they won't screw you over completely. Be prepared to play hardball if you need to, but also remember that in KZ some things just take longer than in other places.

4. What's the working environment like?

Depends on the school. A typical school will probably not be in great physical condition. Lights won't work, shades won't open, in the bathroom the there will be no dividers between toilets. But it won't be awful or intolerable.Be prepared for anything to change at any time. You may find that one day you walk in and the whiteboard is gone and a chalkboard is in its place. The copy machine may run out of paper and no one has any extra paper. You may show up to find that no one told you that today is Parent Teacher meetings and your classes are cancelled. Or you may come early and find a bunch of strange kids sitting in your classroom because they were told they would be learning with you today.

Students will probably be very respectful and obedient. Just don't be too nice or soft with them at first. They aren't used to it and they will take advantage of it. Most kids want to learn English and they will be extremely curious about you, your life, your culture, your country. Students make it all worth it.

5. Is there a big expat community in Astana?

Yes and no. There are more and more expats here but there aren't a lot of expat hangouts per se. Try Northwind Pub or the InterContinental Hotel but most expats meet via work and networking. So it might be hard especially if you work in a school where there aren't going to be other expats (I assume).
Good Luck

Thank you very much for the load of useful information. Hope your stay in KZ remain great.
Cheers!