HCT's 'kangaroo court' style of management

We received another tale of HCT management’s spineless and unprincipled approach to its teaching staff a few days back. I’ve just given it a little light editing, to protect the innocent and thrust the guilty a little further into the spotlight. The facts, however, remain as they were initially written.

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If Teacher X had been living in a civilised Western country he would probably have won a claim for unfair dismissal, after the HCT college he worked for sacked him following several contrived complaints from his pampered Emirati students.

Teacher X had worked for HCT for almost ten years before he was dismissed in June last year for gross misconduct. The teacher claims that the complaints made against him were wholly unfair, and that the college conflated several allegations against him into a single charge of gross misconduct, even though he had previously been cleared of two of the allegations.

The first allegation of misconduct related to an incident that happened in September 2008, when a disruptive 17-year-old Emirati boy alleged that Teacher X pushed a desk at him. The teacher claimed that he merely moved the table to make more room in the aisle, and that the boy made a dramatic gesture of being pushed to the floor by the table.

The disruptive boy lodged a complaint with the HCT management, who ‘investigated’ the case, but the teacher was found to be completely innocent of any wrongdoing.

Later the same year Teacher X was involved in another accusation of apparent misdemeanour. After escorting a disruptive pupil outside the classroom, another student came out of the class and tapped him on the shoulder. Teacher X naturally assumed it was an attempt to provoke him, and shouted at the boy to get back in class.

The boy decided to report the ‘incident’, and the teacher agreed to apologise verbally. The college management also appeared to consider the matter closed, and made no big deal of the allegation.

However, three months later another boy alleged that Teacher X had pushed him against a classroom wall at the end of a class. Although there were no witnesses, the boy's word was taken as fact by the management, and a verbal warning was given ... to the teacher.

One week later, Teacher X had to physically restrain the same boy after he tried to enter a room in which his friend was doing an assessed test. Teacher X stood in the doorway to block the boy’s entrance, and when the boy tried to duck under him, the teacher pushed him back.

Once more there was a complaint made against the teacher, this time for ‘assault’, and the matter was looked into by the college management.

Teacher X claimed that the other students in the classroom were asked to make statements about the incident, but, quite strangely, he wasn't. In his opinion, the whole procedure was a farce, purely designed to effect a dismissal. His case was ‘investigated’ by the college management with a clear view to making Teacher X appear guilty without bothering to ascertain the facts.

The HCT management cravenly rolled all of the allegations together, even though two of them had been proven to be false, and produced a fabricated and conflated charge of ‘gross misconduct’. In summary, the teacher was fired without even being given the right to defend himself.

This is the sort of treatment you can expect at HCT. If the management feel that you are making too much work for them, they will contrive to have you sacked. They are not interested in discovering the facts of a case, just in hushing it up as swiftly as possible. They will perceive the teacher as being the cause of the trouble, rather than the students, and will lose no time in getting you out the door. Nobody will offer any support, as other managers and faculty are scared of being seen to support a ‘lame duck’ – even if you have an unblemished nine-year record!

The HCT culture is one of FEAR, and this stretches to every corner of every college. The students can smell this fear, and some of the younger ones will exploit it for their own benefit, as we have seen in this case.

The message is therefore very clear - Avoid HCT!

Teacher recruitment, HCT-style!

Many UAEU teachers from the UGRU were forcibly removed to HCT Fujeirah this year. Nearly all of them are unhappy working there. This is the unfortunate story of how they came to be there. 

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 One day in the last week of the previous semester, a swarm of besuited HCT managers descended on UGRU. They did their best to sell HCT with pictures and charts, and to allay our fears and concerns, for every UGRU teacher had heard the bad rumours about the HCT management ‘Goon Squad’. 

 They were full of smiles and good-will, and we all began to wonder - “hey, perhaps this place ain’t so bad after all?!” They did a very good job selling HCT, but most of us knew that it was all a big act, just like the Nazis pretended that Theresienstadt wasn't such a bad place and that all the nasty things said about it were all lies and spiteful rumours. 

 At the end of the meeting I put up my hand and asked one of the HCT Fujeirah guys whether he had been told that, when it was announced by the UAEU Provost in mid-May that 22 UGRU teachers where to be transferred to HCT Fujeirah, volunteers had been called for. 

 The point was this: out of a contingent of 160 teachers, it could be expected there would be no problem in finding 22 people willing to transfer. However, only THREE had volunteered!. 

 I honestly think the UAEU Provost, Rory Hume, had been taken aback by this lack of enthusiasm for HCT. By asking for volunteers, Hume must have expected at least a couple of dozen. But when it didn't happen, the order came to make the Stasi-like selection and press-gang the other 19, regardless of their particular individual circumstances. It was, truly, a heart-breaking situation, and a shocking action that took place. 

 This selection process was utterly arbitrary, unfair and callous, to say the least. In effect, every one of those 19 had a gun pointed to his/her head and was told, "If you don't sign the paper agreeing to the transfer, you will be dismissed on the spot!" What a situation to be placed in! 

 There was one particular teacher who had previously escaped from HCT and joined UGRU on good faith. However, she was promptly told that she had been ‘volunteered’ to return to HCT. She refused and resigned on the spot. 

NOW, DOES ALL THIS SHIT MAKE ANY SENSE TO YOU? IT DOESN'T TO ME! 

Anyway, getting back to the question, I asked the little HCT chap whether HCT management felt any embarrassment that from 160 UGRU teachers, ONLY three had volunteered for the transfer, while the other 19 had to be cajoled and threatened with dismissal if they didn't go. 

The HCT Goon went red in the face at my question, and for several seconds he didn't quite know how to respond. But then, with his normal crocodile smile slowly returning to his face, he replied quite simply, and with some malice in his eyes towards me: "No, we at HCT are not embarrassed by that."

That's what truly happened.

When the Chickens Come Home to Roost . . .

It’s true - you can always trust ‘The National’ to get its facts right. Well, some of them - let’s say half, shall we? Their recent report on the present education funding shortfall was a good example of a newspaper being ‘economical with the truth’. Take a quick look at these two small but significant excerpts from the article . . .

1. The HCT is finding it increasingly difficult to attract "exceptional" faculty members, who are being offered better deals elsewhere.

2. Long teaching hours, slow promotions and better work offers outside the HCT were also identified as problems.

The first part is absolutely true – teachers are getting better offers from other colleges and universities in the Gulf region, and thus turning their collective backs on King Kamali’s empire. Well, who can blame them?

The second section is also true, especially at some of the least popular Gulags in the HCT network, where lousy management force staff to undertake unpaid overtime and remain on the premises unnecessarily. Here we can see a sickly mixture of control freakery and a despicable exploitation of each faculty member’s reluctance (i.e. fear) to stand up to management bullying.

But that’s only half the story, I would say. One only needs to cast an eye at Dave’s ESL Café and at any one of the three blogs (this one included) that lift the lid on the lousy state of affairs in many, if not most, of HCT’s colleges. There the truth is laid bare, and it is not an edifying spectacle. Is it any wonder prospective employees, especially of the 'exceptional' variety, prefer to go elsewhere?

What is very clear, then, is that HCT’s current recruitment problem is a direct result of their awful treatment of its own faculty, especially since King Kamali ascended to the HCT throne some five years back. And this systematic mistreatment of professionals teachers and other staff is now bearing its poisoned fruit.

This particular blog gets an average of 50 hits every day, and every one of those readers soon understands that the Higher Colleges of Technology is not a desirable place to work. That’s the main objective of this site.

I too realised that something was very rotten in the HCT empire some time ago, and when I attempted to inform the rest of the world via ‘The National’ I was dismissed, along with another colleague who had committed a similar act of enlightenment (although we were not actually aware of each other until after the event). Even worse, we were both denied our gratuities, which was an illegal act.

As a result of this shameful treatment by our respective (but not respected) superiors, we decided to set up this blog. At present we have no plans to abandon it or close it down, and we can not really envisage that ever happening. The sore will be kept open, with regular doses of salt added. Only the restoration of our stolen gratuities will oblige us to apply a bandage and let the healing process take place.

The Ogre of Ebbw Dhabi Men's College (ADMC)

I was recently reminded of HCT's Spring appearance in 'The National' concerning their shameless reneging on their own imposed 'merit pay' system, which appeared with such triumphalist fanfare several years ago. As a result I was moved to revisit some of the comments about the issue that appeared around the time on Dave’s ESL Café. And I am so glad that I did, as what I dug up will serve as a very suitable "hors d'oeuvre" to the forthcoming posting on Dr Osimon bin Jones and his ridiculous 'Taffyban' system of college management at ADMC!

1. Reports emanating from ADMC suggest that the Director there (commonly known as 'SiJo') is none too happy about his kind words to the staff being mentioned in The National. Front-line staff can expect an e-mail from him soon, instructing all faculty members to only address the press upon approval of the relevant Supervisor. Yes, of course.....

The unfortunate truth is that the Director there is Gordon Brown-like in his grasp of reality. He struts about mentioning to all and sundry that ADMC is "a happy ship", when he has NO idea of the depth of feeling about this issue (merit pay) and several others. Presumably his underlings, the Deans and Supervisors, just tell him what he wants to hear; because he has no other way of knowing what people think about him, or his lack of social and communication skills (refer to the e-mail for that!).

And how would he? He never comes to sit in the teachers' room for 10 or 15 minutes, he always takes lunch in the cafeteria with his management cronies, and the only time he bothers to speak to the mere teachers is when he holds his 'focus group' meetings once a year.

Incidentally, at one of these meetings a few weeks back he dropped the bombshell that class sizes will increase to 25 next year. Again, no reason or warning, no apology, was given for this - it just sort of 'fell out', and the humble faculty members sat there in silence, wondering if they were listening to the words of an insensitive prat or a complete goon. Or perhaps even an accomplished shyster-man?

I leave it up to the rest of my colleagues to try and divine which it is.....

2. The 'gagging order' has been issued! Just yesterday all ADMC staff and faculty received a message from their respective supervisors reminding them of the need to consider the college's "Code of Ethics", which is one of their conditions of employment in the UAE.

In short, the pompous windbag of a director has sent instructions that staff and faculty at ADMC "should only speak to representatives of the Media in the presence of HCT/ADMC Media and Marketing Department staff ... in order to ensure that any comments made to the Media are approved by our organization." What a surprise, eh?!

It really disappoints me when an institute of learning tries to monitor and control what its own faculty and staff think and say. The fact that teachers are not allowed to express their opinions, that the college's 'Thought Police' believe that they have the right to veto every staff member's private feelings, is not the right attitude for an educational institute to take, but was clearly predictable in the circumstances.

In fact, the mere idea that 'approved comments' should only be released into the public domain after vetting is one that would be familiar to those HCT employees who had the misfortune to be born in authoritarian and totalitarian states. Is that what we have here now in the UAE? Or is just the inevitable result of a discredited Director trying hard to prevent further examples of his incredible 'lack of social and communication skills' reaching a wider audience?!

3. Of course, HCT will still be able to find the money to fund the coming 'Festival of Stinkers' shindig, flying in academic has-beens on first class tickets and putting them up at the best hotels (Emirates Palace, of course) for a week. But they can't find the necessary money to pay their staff properly or comply with their own pay agreements.

Stinkers indeed!

Simon Jones - the ogre of Ebbw Dhabi Men's College

I was recently reminded of HCT's Spring appearance in 'The National' concerning their shameless reneging on their own imposed 'merit pay' system, which appeared with such triumphalist fanfare several years ago. As a result I was moved to revisit some of the comments about the issue that appeared around the time on Dave’s ESL Café. And I am so glad that I did, as what I dug up will serve as a very suitable "hors d'oeuvre" to the forthcoming posting on Dr Osimon bin Jones and his ridiculous 'Taffyban' system of college management at ADMC!

1. Reports emanating from ADMC suggest that the Director there (commonly known as 'SiJo') is none too happy about his kind words to the staff being mentioned in The National. Front-line staff can expect an e-mail from him soon, instructing all faculty members to only address the press upon approval of the relevant Supervisor. Yes, of course.....

The unfortunate truth is that the Director there is Gordon Brown-like in his grasp of reality. He struts about mentioning to all and sundry that ADMC is "a happy ship", when he has NO idea of the depth of feeling about this issue (merit pay) and several others. Presumably his underlings, the Deans and Supervisors, just tell him what he wants to hear; because he has no other way of knowing what people think about him, or his lack of social and communication skills (refer to the e-mail for that!).

And how would he? He never comes to sit in the teachers' room for 10 or 15 minutes, he always takes lunch in the cafeteria with his management cronies, and the only time he bothers to speak to the mere teachers is when he holds his 'focus group' meetings once a year.

Incidentally, at one of these meetings a few weeks back he dropped the bombshell that class sizes will increase to 25 next year. Again, no reason or warning, no apology, was given for this - it just sort of 'fell out', and the humble faculty members sat there in silence, wondering if they were listening to the words of an insensitive prat or a complete goon. Or perhaps even an accomplished shyster-man?

I leave it up to the rest of my colleagues to try and divine which it is.....

2. The 'gagging order' has been issued! Just yesterday all ADMC staff and faculty received a message from their respective supervisors reminding them of the need to consider the college's "Code of Ethics", which is one of their conditions of employment in the UAE.

In short, the pompous windbag of a director has sent instructions that staff and faculty at ADMC "should only speak to representatives of the Media in the presence of HCT/ADMC Media and Marketing Department staff ... in order to ensure that any comments made to the Media are approved by our organization." What a surprise, eh?!

It really disappoints me when an institute of learning tries to monitor and control what its own faculty and staff think and say. The fact that teachers are not allowed to express their opinions, that the college's 'Thought Police' believe that they have the right to veto every staff member's private feelings, is not the right attitude for an educational institute to take, but was clearly predictable in the circumstances.

In fact, the mere idea that 'approved comments' should only be released into the public domain after vetting is one that would be familiar to those HCT employees who had the misfortune to be born in authoritarian and totalitarian states. Is that what we have here now in the UAE? Or is just the inevitable result of a discredited Director trying hard to prevent further examples of his incredible 'lack of social and communication skills' reaching a wider audience?!

3. Of course, HCT will still be able to find the money to fund the coming 'Festival of Stinkers' shindig, flying in academic has-beens on first class tickets and putting them up at the best hotels (Emirates Palace, of course) for a week. But they can't find the necessary money to pay their staff properly or comply with their own pay agreements.

Stinkers indeed!

"You're lucky to have jobs!"

You can always trust 'The National' to get its facts right. The newspaper's recent reporting of the much-promised HCT cock-up regarding the transfer of teachers from UAEU's disbanded foundation courses in Al Ain to the manifold points of the HCT empire in the UAE pointed the finger firmly at the usual suspects - the college's incompetent and arrogant senior managers.

In fact, so far just three teachers have resigned, but there are many others still complaining about their worsening working conditions, and the college can only look forward to losing more teachers over the coming weeks. As the paper reports, those teachers who refused to transfer to Fujairah risked being dismissed, whereas those who did go have found themselves facing increased workloads - 50% more contact hours - and no extra pay. In other words, it's the same old HCT, dumping on its professional staff and losing a lot of goodwill in the process. Well done, TK!

According to one brave teacher speaking to The National, “we were told we are lucky to have jobs, lucky to be up here, but we don’t feel lucky”. Even worse, Dr Mark Drummond, the provost at HCT, said that such complaints were to be expected in the wake of such a big change. In other words, they knew they could rely on HCT's teachers to bear the brunt of the management's incompetence and their inability to do the job properly.

Arrogance? Incompetence? It's all part of the HCT experience for us teachers!

Sexual Harassment at HCT

Here it is, the latest distressing and disturbing story about how you might expect to be treated if you decide to come and work at HCT. This account has been lightly edited, but the force of the tale remains, I feel.

I would like to describe how I was subjected to ongoing sexual harassment at an HCT college on an almost daily basis. I have no wish to mention any names, as my Tormentor (referred to as just ‘T’ from now on) continues to work at the same college, and I still work in the UAE, although in a different city and for a better organisation now. My aim is merely to highlight the way that I was mistreated by an alleged ‘professional’, how the HCT system turned its back on me, and to warn others that it could very easily happen to them.

My ordeal began during the second day of my new position as program supervisor some five years ago. T came into my office on the pretext of congratulating me on my promotion, but then proceeded to make a few tasteless comments that left his true intentions in no doubt. In all there was a whole series of more than a hundred humiliating incidents of sexual harassment that took place between 2005 and 2007. T’s behaviour ranged from the use of verbal harassment – frequent invites to evening functions, unwarranted compliments, and crude language – to unsolicited physical contact, such as touching my hair, brushing against me, and attempting to embrace me. It became a suttle form of psychological bullying, and T refused to stop even when I made it patently clear that I was not interested in his advances.

Of course I really wanted to make some sort of formal complaint about T’s predatory behaviour, but felt that I had nobody trustworthy to turn to. After all I was a relative newbie to the HCT system, and I was also told that complaining about one of the senior management team was virtually unheard of, that it would almost certainly have negative effects on my career at HCT. In the end I left the college, as my mental and physical health had suffered so much that I could no longer function in my post effectively.

I have been working in the field of education for around 25 years, and I have never come across such a corrupt and compromised organisation as the Higher Colleges of Technology. I could write a whole lot more, but even just composing these few words has made me realise how much I still need to try to put all this behind me.

HCT's on Wiki!

This piece popped up recently as part of the HCT entry on Wikipedia. Interesting, eh?

Controversy

The Higher Colleges of Technology, under the direction of Dr Tayeb Kamali, have been no stranger to controversy. In December 2005, soon after Dr Kamali was appointed as Vice Chancellor of HCT, a spate of resignations were reported, raising concern among employees over increasing job uncertainty which could adversely affect the reputation and standard of the institutions.

Some 25 officials ranking from directors, supervisors and heads of departments primarily from the directorates of Central Services and Academics at HCT, resigned for various reasons, prominent being the alleged change in policy after Dr Kamali took charge in June. [read newspaper article here]

Moreover, the HCT system has recently come in for strong criticism after the College management reneged on a previously agreed 'merit pay' system, and also ordered cuts in pay increments throughout the organization without attempting to explain or justify them in any way. For further details, see here: Pay frozen and job losses loom from The National, May 12, 2010.

The ADWC sackings - a victim writes...

One of the unfortunate victims of 'the June purge' at ADWC has kindly offered to put his side of the story. I wonder if the ADWC management will oblige and report their side of the business?

Let me give you a taste of how it was done on the days we got fired. The way the spineless bastards did it was to have the very nice HR assistant go about the college and tell us, on a 15-minute or so rotation, that "Dr. Dave" wanted to see us. A chuckle went through some of our minds as some, if all, had never, personally, met him before and he was frequently absent from campus or holed up in his glass-surrounded office.

On the first day, they got three of us. Our notification was that it was to be considered a "General Interest" termination due to the "New Foundations" rollout. Of course, we knew that it was unadulterated bullshit. Not liking to do overtime was likely the deciding factor for many if not all, as refusal to do required overtime is considered treason at ADWC. Overtime should be voluntary, but when you can’t reach staffing levels because of a bizarre system where the whim of T.K. is over-riding in recruitment or enough people have been warned off (I know who warned off a person who had been offered the Ed Tech supervisor’s position), then it becomes a mandatory requirement of employment at the ADWC

The really sad thing is that a colleague and fellow Khalifa campus exile had met up with another the second morning in the "library" to share his regrets. Talk about being philosophical was discussed, and hands were shook as the unwary colleague wandered on into the information session that was being held about the New Foundations that morning. It was only the next day that it was discovered that he had received the axe that day as well... so total was the shock and awe of the day(s).

I can't say that any of the fired teachers had anything to do with the infamous blog, but if it was, then it shows the spineless nature and paranoia of the highest levels of ADWC mismanagement as it is unthinkable to fire innocent professionals that have been found guilty in a star chamber and not given a fair chance by either proving their guilt or allowing them to disprove the allegations against them.

More importantly, all of this came as the culmination of a year of COMPLETE mismanagement and ABSOLUTE DISREGARD for the professional teaching staff. First, by teaching staff returning to find all of our professional tools thrown into cardboard boxes even though there was two weeks between the time they returned and the starting teaching, and then by going downhill from there. The exiling of staff to Khalifa without it being ready for start-up and other policy discussions that had gone on was the breaking point for many.

There’s only one way for the ADWC to go from now on. It’s doubtful that the new director who was hired after the farce of a “director” who presided over the sinking ship and was sent packing to Fujairah, can do much to redeem the reputation of what used to be a great place to work.