Housing? Bonuses? Health Care? Oh Greg. You’ve been on JET too long. You’ll be hard pressed to find any company or BOE offering those to an ALT.

Plus Health Care…. ha. The usual “scam” that is run on ALTs is that on paper they only work 20-30 hours a week, which means that the BOE or Dispatch company doesn’t need to pay for any health care.

In my case, and from what I heard many other ALT cases, the English half of my contract said I was working 40 hours a week. The Japanese half said I was only working 20, even though I was told I HAD to be at school more than eight hours a day. As with all dual language contracts in Japan the Japanese half is the only half that counts.

@beck: You only need to put in the info you feel comfortable. While the form on the front page asks your for everything, I believe it is not required information. I did not put in my address for the same concerns you have.

Also, don’t forget JET is not mainly about teaching English. This is a huge point the 事業分わけ people ignored. Japanese Exchange and Teaching – including CIRs (not just from English speaking countries) and SEAs, who are few, but awesome. JET plays a crucial role in exposing Japan, especially their youth, to different cultures and perceptions of PEOPLE; this is a rare and precious opportunity in a country with barely more than 1% foreign population, and the majority of them coming from the same corner of the globe.

I don’t know that I would say that many of the non-JET ALTs don’t stay long. I think a lot of them move between companies because of the working conditions, or because their company forces them to move. But there are plenty who stay in one place for a long time, building relationships with the school, students and community. I know in my town one school has had three different teachers from JET in three years, while one non-JET stayed for 5 years or so (until he had to return home due to a family emergency in the middle of the year).

Some dispatch companies do have training and regular meetings for their employees. Some provide their employees with all sorts of teaching materials – flashcards, sample lessons, worksheets, game ideas. It just depends on the company, and who is in charge at the time an ALT starts.

Also, some of these dispatch people are former JETs, thus they have teaching experience. I also know more dispatch employees with teacher training, licenses, experience than I do people on the JET program, so I think it is unfair to make that comment as well.

Yes, many of these companies tend to be out for money and don’t care about the ALTs at all, but some of these ALTs do as much work, if not more, than their JET counter parts. The best way to look at is that every situation is different.

As part of Japan’s efforts to grapple with its massive public debt, the JET (Japan Exchange & Teaching) Program may be cut. Soon after coming into power, the new government launched a high profile effort to expose and cut wasteful spending. In May 2010, the JET Program and CLAIR came up for review, and during the course of an hourlong hearing, the 11-member panel criticized the JET scheme, ruling unanimously that a comprehensive examination should be undertaken to see if it should be pared back or eliminated altogether. The number of JET participants has already been cut back by almost 30 percent from the peak in 2002, but this is the most direct threat that the program has faced in its 23-year history.

For one they’re now paying new ALTs between 200-230,000 a month. Before taxes. None of them provide any help with air fair coming or going. They usually don’t’ provide health coverage (as on paper their ALTs only work 30 hours a week) and many will try and get money out of their ALTs by “providing” housing at jacked up rates.

What you say? Those be violations of Japanese Labor Laws! That hasn’t stopped every dispatch company from doing it, and from every school system who hires these companies to turn a blind eye. Several teachers unions are suing their prefectures because of it, out of fear that soon part time teaching jobs will also go over to the dispatch companies.

I know this for a fact as someone who went through this after JET. From what I’ve heard from other private ALTs such practices are common.

The problem is that every company is trying to out compete the others, which means lowering the pay of the ALT. Just look at the website gaijinpot and you’ll even find the occasional full time ALT job for under 200,000 a month.

With such horrible pay and benefits, it’s going to be hard to convince someone to go into the deep innaka as well. As it is they have a horrible turnover rate compared to JET.