Sunday 10 December 2023

HCT on Glassdoor: the dismal truth!

A recent perusal of the HCT reviews on GlassDoor has revealed that, of the past ten reviews left this quarter, a mighty ONE is positive about the place! A further one is neutral, whereas, for some unfathomable reason, eight former and current employees have seen fit to leave several (oops – many!) black marks on HCT’s report card. How can that possibly be?

So take a careful scrutiny of the comments below, and then see if you can detect a common recurring theme. It should not be too difficult. Even better, see if you can match each review with its Glassdoor title, as per below!

 

·         Worst Management

·         There is a War at HCT: Faculty and Staff are bleeding

·         Yikes!

·         Toxic Working Environment

·         Professional Suicide

·        Toxic beyond belief

·         Could improve

 

 

December 2023 - Cons

Lots of micromanagement of faculty (i.e., faculty punch in and out every day at a time clock, not allowed to leave campus for lunch even and no restaurants on campus!) with next to no consequences for student misconduct; makes effective teaching very challenging. Severely restricted our healthcare in the middle of the year; suddenly changed working conditions without notice/last minute (i.e., required faculty to teach on Saturdays, five weeks after the semester had started, with only 72 hours' notice); haven't given faculty a raise in 12 years. Punitive, not transparent, unpredictable, inconsiderate, exploitative (many faculty have over 250 students), and minimal if any consequences for students: poor behavior, academic dishonesty, missing of exams, etc. Not a very academic environment at all with minimal opportunities for research, guest speakers, committees, clubs, etc. Very insular with next to no collaboration with outside universities. Minimal opportunity for promotion, even after earning a PhD. No student diversity.


November 2023 - Cons

Arrogant management; not much room for independent working; too much control by the management

Advice to Management

Learn to be open, kind, and supportive. Your faculty is running your system, so you should look after their benefits concretely not by offering tiny and meaningless romantic surprise gifts to compensate skipping annual bonuses.


October 2023 - Cons

No opportunity for growth. The manager's degree needs to be rechecked as they have zero sense of operation. Insanely dumb policies were issued such as presence on Friday just to complete working hours. The weekly meeting does nothing except put more pressure on staff. Everyone is mentally disturbed by the dumbness of the higher organizational hierarchy. Please refrain from applying unless you have no other place.

Advice to Management

Please read some books to understand about basic motivators and consider staff human. We also have a family to look after.


October 2023 - Cons

If it costs your peace, then it is expensive. Don’t be taken away by the salary package. The job is like working in two full time jobs plus one part time. Academic freedom died here. Faculty are mentally drained and no hope to ease the pain they feel. You are in a race against the computer/automation of tasks inside a maze of nonstop monitoring of missed actions in the computer system. Example: Missed to take the attendance yesterday, 6:00 AM, email will be sent that you missed it. Attendance alert from students at 6:00 AM. On average 10-15 emails per day, Moderation is stressful and time consuming. 4-6 courses per term. Student class number increased to 28. Working in HCT is like earning money that you will just use for hospitalization. No humanity at all.

Advice to Management

We cannot beat the computer. It is a tool to help us, not to stress us.


October 2023 - Cons

It is one of the worst working environments in the world. I will share facts based on my experiences in HCT for the past years. 

• A military style and incompetent leader in an academic environment run HCT with no real academic experience in a large environment. He views all faculty as unfit. He has a lot of issues and doesn’t know how to deal with them.

 • The middle/upper management focuses on marketing themselves in the media at the expense of faculty time and efforts. The focus is on themselves.

 • HR is famous for releasing rules followed by several revisions. They are very slow to respond to inquiries.

 • Administration staff are popular for passing their duties to faculty.

 • You are expected to teach 15 credit hours in four days except Friday. Each class is 2 hours long for 3 credit hours. Do the math per week.

 • Students and faculty can’t leave the class even 5 minutes earlier. If you do, you will get a warning letter.

 • Too many administrative duties on faculty. Faculty consistently overloaded with work, leading to burnout and fatigue.

 • You must come to campus on Friday even if no duties or teaching are needed. Just to put in some hours.

 • Toxic working environment. Everyone fears everyone. Passing blame is a common practice. Many faculty face instances of bullying, gossip, or general negativity among colleagues. Giving warning letters is common, even for ridiculous HR rules such as not wearing a tie.

 • There is no transparency between the upper management and employees.

 • It is a highly complex working environment with many rules and procedures. Other institutions work to improve processes and procedures; HCT, on the other hand, adds processes and procedures to the existing ones.

 • Upper management decisions change very often.

 • No promotion; it is tough to get promoted. Why? To save money.

 • It has never been a salary raise.

 • Summer teaching is mandatory with no compensation, unlike other real universities in the country and worldwide.

 • Biometric sign-in is required, and you must complete 36.5 hours weekly, unlike other federally funded excellent real universities. Failing to achieve these hours will result in financial penalties.

 • The leader doesn’t care about research, only teaching.

 • Invigilate high school students taking EMSAT on Sundays is optional at this moment, with ridiculously low compensation ($80 for six hours). However, due to this very low compensation, very few are volunteering for this task. This might change and make it compulsory without payment based on circulating rumors. Anyway, it is coming.

 • The absence of private spaces or areas to concentrate leads to constant disruptions. There are no offices, just cubicles in a large area housing many faculty.

 • Faculty don’t have ergonomically designed furniture, leading to discomfort over prolonged periods.

 • Lack of transparency from management about HCT goals, expectations, or changes, leading to feelings of insecurity, confusion, and certainly.

 • Based on the latest news, more faculty are leaving than new hires are coming. They are asking us to refer friends to apply for HCT, but most faculty are not complying or encouraging friends to do so. I am sure you understand why.

 • Tickets are paid the same despite your country of origin and distance from UAE. 

In a nutshell, it is crucial for you to prioritize a healthy working environment. Working in a toxic workplace hampers your productivity and creative potential and can lead to detrimental physical and mental health consequences. Chronic stress, anxiety, and a sense of disillusionment are common repercussions of such environments like HCT. Furthermore, a toxic workplace can hinder your career progression and stifle opportunities for growth and learning. Therefore, it is imperative for you to conduct thorough research, seek feedback, and trust your instincts when evaluating potential employment opportunities in HCT. Avoiding toxic work environments will pave the way for a fulfilling and sustainable career journey. Unless you are desperate for a job, then come and join us. There are many fake positive reviews. There is absolutely nothing positive in this institution. It is not a real university as we know it; it is more of an elementary school run and operated by people who don’t understand the academic field.

Advice to Management

Hopeless to advise. He doesn’t listen. Don’t treat faculty as slaves with master’s or Ph.D. degrees.


September 2023 - Cons

Toxic environment, good educational background is a real disadvantage for promotion, nothing is about education but management, lazy, very weak ability of students etc

Advice to Management

Give some credits for your employees with proper education and experiences from real world class institutions

 September 2023 - Cons

It is a completely toxic and dysfunctional place, run by people who have no clue about education. The psycho bullying atmosphere starts at the top and others follow suit. There is no education happening here, just mercenaries collecting money and high managers enjoying bossing people around before eventually stabbing them. Admin employees are told to leave reviews on this site to make the organization look decent. You should only accept a job here if you are totally desperate and willing to do anything with no ethical compass.

Advice to Management

They will not listen, there is no point.

Glassdoor Summary: HCT has an overall rating of 3.3 out of 5, based on over 353 reviews left anonymously by employees. 51% of employees would recommend working at HCT to a friend and 39% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has decreased by -11% over the last 12 months.

Meanwhile, the current Ratings Distribution for the Educational Empire of Evil stands as follows:

5 stars: 14%

4 stars: 15%

3 stars: 23%

2 stars: 14%

1 star:  34%

Monday 30 October 2023

Staff Plagiarism Scandal Rocks HCT!

Yes, it's not just the students who cheat at HCT - the academic staff are at it too! The following report has been a long time coming, due to various concerns on the part of the writer, who is very close to Mission Control at HCT. Yet I feel that you will agree, it has been worth the wait!

*******

Plagiarised reports? Dodgy PhDs? Not here, boss …

The Head Honchos at HCT have been sitting on this veritable Pandora’s Box of academic malpractice for many months now, fearing that the fireworks might explode into the public domain and effectively finish off HCT’s already extremely tarnished reputation.

Well, here we go…

Last Spring, word reached the very peak of the HCT directorate that two of its academic directors had been accused of almost entirely plagiarizing several research papers published in an Iranian academic journal. Although they were initially assured that the theft represented isolated incidents (as if that makes it less reprehensible), a research fellow from one of the main universities in Teheran later contacted HCT to drop some very bad news: it was just the tip of the iceberg.

In fact, it has recently been discovered that, over the past year, half a dozen other Iranian researchers have reported their papers being extensively plagiarized and republished under Emirati names in peer-reviewed journals published in academic journals in Canada, South Africa and New Zealand. In some cases it appears that the research papers had first seen life as articles in Farsi, but were then translated into English and submitted by the shameless Emirati ‘authors’ as their own work. These authors’ links to HCT have already been proven, but their names have been protected by the fog of secrecy that regularly swirls around Central Services. Although everybody knows their names, nobody dare speak them.

According to the latest informed rumors, all but one of the shameful plagiarists have confessed to their wrongdoing, admitted their plagiarism, and then gone on to retract their papers. However, clear evidence of the above is hard for an 'outsider' to find, as all names and titles have been diluted to the point of transparency. And not one of the thieves has been made to surrender their post.

Another case involving a Middle Eastern university reveals that an article submitted by a prominent HCT director included sentences apparently lifted verbatim from a master’s dissertation submitted by a Turkish student. The same piece of research included some original material written in poor English, whereas other parts featured passages written very eloquently, almost as if they were written by a third party. The phenomenon of paying somebody else to write your academic papers is, of course, not unique to the HCT, being rife throughout the Middle East. But only HCT would wish to hush it up, rather than hang out the perpetrators to dry. Isn’t that right?

However, I have saved the best (possibly) for last. So, please tell me - just who is the VIP HCT employee who cribbed the main part of his Doctorate from a Pakistani research fellow’s work, added a few of his own observations, and then submitted it to another university as entirely his own work? Just who is this ruthless and disreputable specimen of humanity, who betrayed a former colleague? Do we have a name to match to this heinous academic crime? I believe that the whole of HCT Central Services know who this person is, but their fearful silence speaks volumes.

Or can somebody else fill in the missing parts of the jigsaw in the Comments Section below?


Tuesday 8 August 2023

Exams at HCT

A day in the life of a faculty drone. Or, Alice in the educational desert Wonderland, where we voyage from the mundane to the frankly silly, and then way out yonder to the incredibly bizarre!

Exams at HCT:


As most academics worldwide understand and accept, exams are not the best way to either engage, interest or (Heaven Forbid) even assess a student. But HCT makes a fetish of exams, ranging from a 'Quiz' to a 'Mid-term' and, in their parlance, a "FWA" - a "Faculty Wide Assessment". What all this nonsense actually means is: everything in triplicate please, to a strict deadline, subject to scrutiny from an 'Assessment Specialist' -  a.k.a. someone who has no idea about your subject specialism, yet can enforce Bloom’s Hierarchy of Knowledge to almost anal precision (with the aid of a textbook).

Erm, excuse me, but most academic institutions have dispatched Bloom to the intellectual dustbin - or hadn't you noticed? But it’s hopeless. The key here is to understand that if you are a "Senior Course Leader" (with no enhancement to pay or time) you must take charge of writing exams in triplicate for every subject you teach. Each exam must be at least 80% different from the others. So go figure. … that's 27 different written tests per subject per term. Folks, it breaks people, especially when each exam comes back as some obsessive has spotted a comma out of place or a margin that is one whole millimetre out of alignment. This nonsense all begins in week 1-3, so it can last a whole semester!

And almost incredibly, it even gets worse. If you manage to get your exams past the 'Assessment Specialist' (subject to Peer and Academic Program Lead scrutiny too), then congratulations! You are now obliged to be on campus during the said exams and to mark them all. Please do not get me started on moderation either! That's a whole confusing rule-bound and process specific laden process. But I digress. So through the hurdles, deadlines, returns of work, after the endless weekends and evenings we finally get to...

Week 12: Deans of 'Academic Operations' insist on mandatory attendance at "FWA training". This is an opportunity to gather the slaves together, feed them the regulations and the updates and warn them that any transgression is a "violation" that has implications for their careers. So just watch it! These Deans of 'Academic Operations' are merely justifying their salaries to their masters. Servile and cowing they are whilst looking fearfully upwards, they now have the chance to flex their addled muscles and brains downwards. Oh joy!

The bottom line here is that over 200 rules, regulations and their many variations have to be meticulously obeyed and followed - and then justified if they are breached. Worse still, they 'update' them every Semester! What this means, I am afraid to say, is that most Faculty members will find themselves walking up and down a Hall "actively invigilating" (there are severe penalties for not being "active") for 2-6 hours a day during the "exam season" inclusive of Saturdays (without overtime) and marking all papers, moderating and submitting grade books within 72 hours. Faculty are also banned from bringing mobiles into the "FWA Zone" and subject to flogging if they breach that rule. Sorry. I told a lie. It's not the Navy in the 18th century, it's HCT. But simply put, you'll be punished by being 're-trained', sent to more invigilation duties, or even sacked. The 'jolliness' that HCT tries to spoon over all this is laughable. One might sick up "Lashings of Ginger Beer" as it is no picnic. Some people quite literally break.

Curiously, the HCT ‘management’ has devised a system of self-audit. They recruit those sad folk who love the retarded system to be 'auditors'... just to make sure their ‘process’ is running fine. As a result, cue exam season and a flurry of stern faculty-wide emails emerge from the Dean of 'Academic Operations' every day: (pull your socks up, Faculty!) about rule breaches (Saif in Engineering, we saw you sitting down for more than FIVE minutes AND taking a cheeky pull at the free water bottle, YOU ARE WARNED!"). And of course, inevitably, there’s a “Look out! The Auditors are on campus today" (erm, is that the point of random audit?). I give up. And once again inevitably, there’s a lot of huffing and puffing and tired back slapping when we all get to the end of the ridiculous process. It's a cruelly bizarre make-believe world, and it could only exist – nay, flourish! – at HCT.

 Just to underline again, forcing students to sit examinations written strictly to Blooms is no way to develop critically thinking minds. But of course, The UAE does not want critical thinkers. Let’s face it, the government here locks up hundreds of its ‘free-thinking’ citizens every year.

It just wants Alice in Wonderland. 

Monday 17 July 2023

Abdullatif M. Al Shamsi

So, a case for Inspector Holmes? Or just some rather old news about that swindling Shamsi fellow ... ?

Either way, a former HCT inmate provides some fine  words of wisdom regarding a possible career move to the Evil Empire.

***

After having wasted nine years of my life working for the rancid dirham, my first few words of advice for any would-be recruit to the gulags of HCT are: take extreme care! In fact, I have a simple cautionary tale for anyone who wishes to climb the greasy management pole at HCT. We are all aware of teachers who have been dismissed without notice on a mere whim, and I have personally seen the kapos get whacked - it's part of the routine at HCT.  Yet I would never have expected the Commandant to literally disappear overnight! But yes, former CEO Al Shamsi was squeezed out like an unwanted herpes scab after the Summer break last year, and, with as little fanfare as possible, a new Sturmbahnfuhrer was ushered in. The king is dead – long live the king!

Of course, for most bold, energetic and forward thinking Higher Educational Institutions, one might have expected a brief 'hand-over' period, at least a "thank you for all you have done, our CEO is now moving on, we are grateful etc.," or even a whip round from the tea boat. And yet, in this case, there was - nada, zilch, diddly squat, sweet FA. So what happened?

All of the above has been shrouded in great secrecy, deep mystery and a good dose of "we don't talk about this and neither should you unless you want to find yourself on the next flight home" so loved by HCT. Umpteen rumours abound, ranging from the Minister for Education sacking him on the spot for getting his fat fingers trapped in the proverbial, not reporting someone else's fat fingers getting caught in the same, for paying homage to Mr Wasta and facilitating nepotism, and for … well, goodness  only knows what.
 

What is clear here is that, whatever exactly happened, it will forever be shielded from us mere inmates. It’s just another case of khalas, move along there, nothing to see here, stop loitering, etc. Of course, the lesson that they want everybody to learn is that they can ‘disappear’ anyone - from the lowliest janitor to the CEO - at the click of a finger. Unsurprising for this part of the world (i.e., the uncivilized part), the case makes it absolutely crystal clear that there is never any accountability, no due process or labour rights that one might expect in the West. Because when the Big Daddy wants you out, you are OUT!

In short, the above matter should serve as a salutary warning to anyone who might be wishing to chance things here. In particular, for those thinking they could forge a successful career at HCT!

Friday 2 September 2022

Three Times a Winner! HCT Humiliated!

As you can see from the picture alongside, HCT likes to make a big song and dance when a teacher leaves. The cheques being proudly held up by the students in Fujairah represent the End of Service payments happily made by HCT to sadly departing faculty members.

Well, it's something like that...

***

Sometimes principles, morals and ethics take over when the lack of those prevails 

So where to start with this David against Goliath story?

I worked in the English Department at the Fujairah HCT campuses for over six years. I resigned officially on October 28th, 2019, in order to have plenty of time to arrange the big move back to Europe in July 2020. My resignation was accepted, but little did we know about Covid back then.

I went back home to Spain during the Spring break, only to find myself stuck in an international lockdown. On top of that, my brother and only family member was left dead in less than 48 hours. What followed has been a combination of struggles, blessings and resilience; yet it didn’t kill me, hence it made me stronger, and truly so.

I couldn’t get back to work because the entire world had stopped, including planes, so the totally incompetent and malicious idiots Adel Zaira, Mona Al Motairi and the campus director Abdullah Al Suwaiji proceed to bravely fire me by email for ‘disciplinary’ reasons. This move broke right there and then every possible Emirati labor law, including the Sheikh’s mandate to not fire any federal employees during Covid!

The incompetent idiots above were so used to seeing people hovering around them over fear for their jobs, they thought I would bend the knee to them: well, that did not happen.

I wrote and documented all emails to back up my case and flew back to the UAE on the first day airports were open - June 21st, 2020. I didn’t know where to go but I was certain that my case would stand in a court of law, not the Emirates Ministry of Injustice, as I was to find out through a 2.5 years journey.

HCT refused to reach an amicable agreement so that I could work to finish my contract in July 2020, and then cancelled my email without previous warning. As a result, I couldn’t communicate with anybody, and my medical insurance was stopped henceforth, so I had to pay for my own prescriptions afterwards for about six months at 140 euros each. Talk about the evil we knew! All this while still being responsible for me, as I didn’t sign my release.

In the meantime, I filed a case through the proper channels, but was advised to look for a lawyer by the court officials. Throughout, I had the honor and the tremendous luck of being emotionally supported by family, friends and a group of wonderful Emirati students and colleagues who couldn’t believe their eyes.

My case was submitted to Abu Dhabi Central Services, who to this day still cannot figure out how a small woman, a foreigner and non Muslim, managed to kick their behinds not once but three times - at the Court of First Instance, the Appeals Court and the Supreme Court, and winning them all!

HCT’s corporate HQ lawyers had been instructed to make my life as miserable as possible in order to delay the process, thus trying to break me mentally, financially and emotionally. Yet they never succeeded. However, it confirmed my suspicions that the Ministry of Justice had been strongly manipulated by the HCT offices, as soon as the judge that gave me my first win at the Court of First Instance was moved to another Emirate with lightning speed, plus they kept appealing with no new evidence, which was admitted. They even managed to convince the Supreme Court, and the last judge, to lower the amount due to me by about 100,000 dhs. All of this would have been funny if it hadn’t revealed such a clear case of corruption at so many levels!  In addition, HCT HR tried for many months to convince me to sign my settlement and release by sending horrible, pressing, bullying emails. Yet obviously, I didn’t give in.

I sent messages to various sheiks, clearly stating my case, at different intervals over a 2.5 year period. They never answered, with only the Minister of Education, an ex-chairman at HCT and another VP doing so towards the end. Their English, and especially their communication skills, left a lot to be desired, considering their positions. As a culture, the Emiratis' total lack of accountability, responsibility and management skills shone because of their absence.

Most Emiratis are interested in looking good at the family press photo or having their names on the news to show how tolerant, respectful and knowledgeable they are. That type of arrogant, bullying attitude is what most expats detest and is the main reason westerners despise them

The end result is … I’ve had a  2.5 years paid holiday, for which I was very grateful during the pandemic. But more importantly, I have clearly made my point about telling the truth, being honest and never giving up on principles.

I have no wish to go back - ever - to the Middle East, where a secretive, hypocritical, lazy, incompetent and totally ignorant culture prevails.

***

So, not once, not twice, but THRICE has HCT been beaten into submission!

May this serve as an uplifting lesson to you ALL!


Monday 22 August 2022

A Desert Resurrection, of sorts...

Hello Readers! So I have returned from the dead – so sorry to disappoint my (many) enemies. Despite my enforced absence, Suede is happy to report a return to activity, and more tales of oppression and suffering to tell.

 Anyway, a couple of months back I received an interesting message from another (yes, another!) of the many HCT victims that have emerged in recent times. In between the various verbal comings and goings, I happened to ask her (i) just why she had just volunteered to come and work for HCT, and (ii) whether she had seen this blog beforehand or not.

 Well, my new colleague chose to ignore my second request (still waiting, by the way!), and merely supplied the following few lines.

 I joined HCT in March 2014, while it was still mostly run by western expats, because I wanted some cash to buy a home. The more time I spent there, the least I liked the culture and the savage oppression of expats, holding jobs over their heads. They run everything by oppression and fear, to hide their malice, dishonesty, corruption and ignorance.

 So, that’s interesting, but nothing original or worth getting excited about, I hear you say – and you are correct.

However, the really good news is that later she sent me a whopping 800-word novella that I should be publishing very soon!

 So watch this space, comrades. I reckon the full story should be ready for publishing in a day or two.

 And meanwhile, I would still like to know just why anybody has taken up a position with HCT in the past few years, especially if they have read the pages of this blog.

UPDATE: received from our 'novelist' above...

Regarding your questions, yes I joined freely but I wasn’t aware of what was going on or your blog. By the way, an Emirati colleague (middle manager) told me that 350 teachers left in July this year. She also said that nobody wants to work there now….they’ve accomplished their goal, to totally ruin the best educational institution in the Middle East, sad 😞

Thursday 31 December 2020

More HCT Women's College Shenanigans (3)


My latest offering is the the third and last in this trilogy of 'tributes' to the HCT's women's colleges. I do most sincerely hope that anybody considering taking up 'employment' (or incarceration) in The Evil Empire will read this former employee's glowing account of the years that he wasted there and make the necessary turnabout.

***

The main problem in criticising this particular HCT Women’s College is – where to begin?

Regarding the management, most dealings with this college’s leadership are characterized by fear and accusations that stem from an obvious lack of professional and academic experience. Almost without exception, our local college ‘leaders’ prefer to view suggestions as attacks, and therefore respond negatively and with a total lack of professional etiquette. This aggressive incompetence is typically a result of a marked lack of confidence in their own abilities (i.e., they know that they are useless, but have no idea what to do about it) and stretches its inept tentacles all the way up from the chairs to the deans to higher level authorities.

One example of this college’s general torpor and incompetence is the last-minute planning and rule-changing that would have been prevented if thought and effort had been made much earlier. As such, the college entirely fails to communicate a strong direction to its faculty and other staff, and perhaps even revels in its ability to contradict itself and leave the staff ever more bewildered. All of this indecision and confusion serves to create an unscholarly environment that simply exposes staff to additional criticism and the assignation of irrelevant work by the ‘superiors’.

Many faculty members here admit that the good lecturers end up leaving the college far too soon, sometimes within as little as a year or two of their arrival. Freshly recruited instructors soon start to suffer in the toxic environment here, which displays a notable aversion to necessary change and a total lack of understanding and respect for established ‘academic’ practice. HCT is, after all, a mere college, despite its cringe-worthy attempts to pass itself off as something approaching a proper institute of higher education.

Perhaps the worst feature of this particular women’s college in the HCT empire is the way that management tends to prioritize how teaching looks on paper rather than in actual practice. In most cases, faculty members are praised for awarding high grades and punished for failing students, and may even be threatened for enforcing the college’s own rules on absences and poor academic performance. Meanwhile, teachers and lecturers wait in fear of a negative word being said about them by disgruntled students, as even the smallest amount of negative feedback from a darling princess can result in dismissal.

In short, this HCT college only serves to achieve a sad and unedifying corruption of the notion of ‘education’. Whereas most institutes of higher education around the world are regarded as centers of change and innovation, this place prefers to instil blame and fear into its practitioners, and is therefore widely regarded as a complete fraud.

And that is exactly what this HCT women’s college really is.

Tuesday 24 November 2020

HCT: From a JEWEL to a TURD in a DECADE!

Dear esteemed readers, please let me present a most heartfelt appeal to any god-damned fools out there who might be considering a stay in 'The Sandpit'. Take good note of the little story below and don't say that you were never warned!

***

I worked at HCT full-time for more than 10 years, and can honestly state that during that time it changed from being one of the best employers in the UAE to one of the worst – if not THE WORST!

 I went there in 2010 with high expectations, and enjoyed (initially) having many excellent colleagues with diverse backgrounds and nationalities. Without doubt, HCT used be a decent place to work between 2010 and 2014, and the management allowed, appreciated and even encouraged innovation. Above all, there were many (OK, several) highly talented students there in those early years, and it was usually a pleasure to teach them.

 But it was about halfway through my second contract when it started to become clear that the orientation of the management had changed. Contracts became entirely subjective, not even worth the ink they were printed with, as senior management displayed a shameless lack of respect for the rules, changing the conditions all the time without even informing us teachers. The prospects of demotion and dismissal became ever greater, with the very real possibility of losing your job at a moment’s notice. One of my colleagues was fired on the very day he was due to take leave – only three days after having his contract renewed! I also heard horror stories of faculty being given their dismissal papers in the middle of lengthy and serious health treatment.

 Whereas HCT had once been one of the best paying colleges in the UAE, that quickly changed. Several staff members (non-teaching/faculty) received NO salary raise for almost a decade, even though living in the UAE had become ridiculously expensive. Moreover, faculty used to have the education fees for their children paid in full, but that was suddenly cut by half in the middle of the last school year I was there. Even worse, when the dreaded Faculty Merit system was initially introduced, many holders of doctorates found themselves downgraded to instructors in the middle of their contracts. At the same time, our Health insurance was abruptly changed, thus depriving many staff of their essential medication, even for long-standing illnesses such as diabetes.

 Another example of HCT’s lack of moral fiber is the depressingly high level of back-stabbing that went on there. In the latter days of my stay at HCT I witnessed many acts of the worse kind at all levels: senior staff would often spy on each other’s emails, and certain teachers would feel no shame in ‘snitching’ on their colleagues to curry favour with their supervisor. All this treachery and betrayal only ever served to ensure that they continued to harm each other, instead of working for the benefit of the organization.

 Finally, anybody who is still considering working for HCT should be aware that the contract you sign contains several articles that clearly conflict with the UAE’s Federal Labor Law – in other words, your contract is ILLEGAL! However, many of my HCT colleagues never discovered these conflicting articles until they were arbitrarily sacked!

 Still thinking of signing up? FORGET IT!!

Thursday 30 July 2020

More Women's College Shenanigans (2)

The next posting is the second in a trilogy of, erm ... three postings about the horrors of working at a women's college in the HCT system. You have been warned!

Report Number 2
Well, what could I possibly say after spending four years teaching the spoilt, moaning and unmotivated princesses of my particular HCT outpost? 

Well, apart from the rude and deceitful students that I’ve already mentioned, there is the so-called management. Quite simply, the managers that I have encountered here are the worst I have experienced in my 30 years of teaching. Firstly, in the years that I have spent here I have never seen them support the teaching staff – not once! – even when it’s crystal clear that the students are the problem. In my view there is a deep vein of ethnic jealousy here, as the locals resent being told how to behave on their own turf, even when they are clearly wrong and know it. Saving face is always more important than getting to the bottom of a problem.

Secondly, there is hardly ever any communication about anything even vaguely important, and when there is, it’s always left to the last possible moment, leaving us all with no time to make proper plans. In most cases we get to hear about matters either second hand or … not at all! Sometimes we have to rely on the students to fill us in on what’s happening, as they will have been informed by email, but not us. On one occasion we only found out a vital piece of news about the college from a newspaper; only the day before it was due to happen did our supreme managers deem to tell us!

This lack of concern – or just total incompetence – extends to many areas of college life. We get called into meetings with just a few minutes of notice. When we ask for some guidance or training on important matters, perhaps to do with exams or syllabus changes, it just doesn’t happen. No attempts are ever made to give thanks or appraisal for a job well done – but then again, how would the useless Emirati managers even know? Almost without exception, the only time that our great masters decide to get a move on is when it concerns bad news - issuing reprimands, warnings and dismissals. So no news is usually considered to be good news by the humble servants.

However, by far the most frustrating and worrying feature of working here, at this particular branch of the HCT empire, is the corruption. Whilst I have not actually seen it myself, there have been cases of certain teachers ‘helping’ students in exams. What I can claim to be true is that marks have been altered to boost exam grades, students have been permitted to re-take exams many more times than college policy permits, and teachers have been pressurised to pass failing students. If you object to all this, you will be escorted out of the college and denied any gratuity or owed monies.

To conclude, my experience at HCT has shown it to be an entirely unprofessional organisation. My college, in particular, should be closed down and its Emirati managers re-employed as shop-assistants or bus-drivers. As for its ‘graduates’, they are fit for nothing – nothing at all! In short, it's by far the worst educational institution that I have ever worked at. The saddest thing is that the whole system is in denial; the local managers, the ones who are steering this limping, chugging monster off the tracks, have not the slightest idea how to do their jobs, and equally they have no clue how much they are despised by us teachers for their inability to do those jobs. 

And that, despite being all very sad, is absolutely true.


Monday 4 May 2020

More Women's College Shenanigans! (1)

Suede-O is happy to reveal that several recently departed inmates from the infamous Evil HCT Empire have sent in their end-of-term reports. And what great reading they make! I sincerely hope - nay, expect - that you will ALL agree!

Report Number 1.
So what would I have done if I had known what a sham HCT is? Well, I guess there are a few things. 

For instance, if I’d known how badly the teaching staff were overloaded with courses and pointless committees, were expected to work free overtime, and would never be consulted on a single matter concerning the teaching processes and outcomes, I guess I would have stayed at home. If I’d been told that my teaching and my students’ learning would suffer from large class sizes and a woefully inexperienced local managers, I would have said: “Hey! But I’m a highly-qualified faculty member with years of international experience! How can you guys be so amateur and incompetent?” If I’d been able to foresee how the senior management micro manage the college(s) and have a total lack of international experience at the highest levels, I would have rolled my eyes in dismay and mumbled a thousand curses under my breath. If I had been aware that way too many alumni had been hired, that they lack the correct attitude and have absolutely no experience in education or industry (or any working situation at all), I probably would have wet my pants laughing at how anybody could have expected to run a tertiary education system with such low caliber employees. Had I been told that the vast majority of female students here have embedded prima-donna attitudes, are accustomed to being clearly spoiled and extremely lazy, then I would have said to myself: it must be HCT!

Caveat emptor: I have not seen a single experienced international faculty member stay at this HCT branch for more than a couple of years; they soon get burned out attempting to give a high  quality education to ungrateful female students who cheat on a large scale and are always supported by their ‘cousins’ in the administration and management. Any self-respecting educator should STAY AWAY from this frustrating maze of lies and contradictions.

My advice to those idiots who call themselves ‘managers’ here, especially of the senior variety, is to learn how treat the faculty with the same respect that you lavish upon your precious darling students; you need to actually seek advice from the internationally experienced instructors that you constantly try to belittle and undermine. More importantly, put an end to the way that you bend over backwards to appease the cheating students, and stop employing your useless alumni, who have neither teaching nor professional experience, and display absolutely no interest in performing their jobs well.

Report Number 2 is ... coming SOON!