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.