myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

Hello my name is Chaachi Deane and I am 24 years old. My father is from Trinidad and so I have spent quite a bit of time in T&T growing up. I have recently come back from a two week family holiday in Tobago and am already pining to get back over there-- and not just on a holiday!! My sister and I are planning to fly out to Tobago mid Feb (in time for carnival-- is it big in tobago or do most people go to Trinidad?) and are going to book 2 weeks accomadation at turtle beach. After that we want to find some cheaper accomodation and look for jobs so that we can try out living in Tobago for real! Both My sister and I work in schools in England, I work in a secondary school as a support manager for children with behavioural difficulties and my sister (19) is a teaching assistant in a primary school. Does anyone know how easy it is to get ork in schools in tobago?, neither of us are trained teachers although I have undergraduate and masters degrees in English Literature. Also does anyone have any idea how much jobs in education generally pay? I am saving furiously at the moment because I realise I will have to have quite a bit of money to be able to fund some job/apartment hunting time and I would really appreciate any advice or information people might have. We are nto restricted to jobs in schools any have other suggestions?

thanks

Chaachi

Hello Chaachi

Welcome aboard!

I'm afraid that compared to the Port Of Spain carnival, you would find the Tobago offering somewhat tame.

Your questions about teaching and jobs are way beyond my own personal knowledge and experience, but hopefully someone else will be able to offer some thoughts.

Hi Chaachi,

At the risk of sounding like the bearer of bad news, I very recently heard of someone on the island who wanted to start up a school here, but was informed that a work permit wouldn't be granted as it wasn't a vocation that was in short supply in T&T. I'm not sure how the work permit situation would affect you personally, however, with your father being a T&T National, although I'm guessing that you'd possibly need to apply for dual nationality (if you don't have it already!) before being allowed to work. My daughter is a T&T National, but until we get our residency, (fingers crossed!), we still need work permits and face an annual visit to Immigration.

There are people on this forum far more knowledgeable than myself on the subject, however (Clyde Alleyne to name but one!) who can give you much better advice in that regard.

It's completely different living here to being on holiday, as I'm sure you can imagine, but it's a great place, and don't let what I've said put you off trying! You may find that with your background you sail through everything and never look back! Just have a back-up plan, in case

Good luck to you both - hopefully we'll see you here soon!

Lisa.

Hi Chaachi, I thought I felt my ears burning with Lisa's mention of my name. I'm not an expert on jobs in Tobago, and especially in in education, but here are some thoughts off the top of my head - in no real order:

To investigate job openings and salary levels in the Public Service (in T&T in general and in the Ministry of Education in particular) try contacting these agencies:
(1) Government Human Resources Services Limited, Level 2, 6 & 6A Saddle Road, Maraval, Trinidad & Tobago, WI, Tel: +1 868 629-GHRS (4477), Fax: +1 868 628-1305. Their web site is http://www.ghrs.gov.tt/default.aspx.
(2) Assemblyman Claudia Groome-Duke, Secretary for Education Youth Affairs and Sports, Tobago House of Assembly. The THA address is Tobago House of Assembly, Jerningham Street, Scarborough, Tobago Tel: 868-639-2696/868-639-5219, Fax: 868-639-5959

Re Salary levels, I believe you are in for a shock - salary levels in T&T are much lower than you would be used to seeing in the UK. My personal guess is that you might find graduate salary levels in Tobago in the range of $100,000 - 180,000 TTD per year - which translates into 8,300 - 15,000 pounds per year. So clearly you would not be coming to Tobago for the money!

Very important is the cost of living in Tobago. Decent 2 BR apartments can sometimes be found with great difficulty in the TTD $3500 - 4000 per month range, but the price range can go up to twice that depending on the level of luxury and neighborhood. Because of the price differential between a brand new car and a "foreign used" car, many first time buyers opt for the foreign used, which starts in the TTD 65,000 - 75,000 for a two year old car imported used from Japan, versus $120,000 - 150,000 for a brand new 1.6L sedan.

My final thought to you ... think very hard about what you want to come to Tobago for - as I said before, with the earnings differential, it definitely can't be for the money. Living and working in a small place like Tobago is very different from holidaying here. My wife and I love it in Tobago, and plan to build our permanent retirement home in Tobago, but we are at a very different stage in life compared to you.

Hope this helps,
Clyde